


Factor IX

by geniewish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Chae Hyungwon-centric, Crime, Depression, Gore, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kinda, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Slow Burn, hyungwon must be protected, please read notes for explanations, tags are horrible but trust me its not that bad, the minhyunhee trio are there for gags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-27 19:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12087384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewish/pseuds/geniewish
Summary: First case, three bodies, unknown psychopathic murderer, and Hyungwon loses himself completely. On his colleague's recommendation he starts visiting a therapist who makes his days a tiny bit brighter, until there is another body. And another one. And another. Hyungwon knows what the murderer wants. Hyungwon understands his messages.He understands him.Hyungwon loses his grip to reality and only his therapist knows how to help him survive this mental battle.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> this is so hannibal inspired im ashamed. 
> 
> if you havent watched it then good for you but if you have. im so sorry this is so bad.
> 
> its heavily dialogue based so please bare with the characters
> 
> basically nothing graphic actually happens to hyungwon or other characters tagged so whew lets chill.
> 
> there are such things as abuse of religion (slightly), animal abuse and mental illnesses, so if its triggering im really sorry.
> 
> yep no joo chang or hyunwoo im sorry they just didnt quite fit in.
> 
> also i have no idea how medicine or medical degree works no matter how much research ive done so i hope its not too distracting.
> 
> hope you enjoy though and please wait for the next chapter since its gonna get much more interesting (i hope)!
> 
> kudos really appreciated!

He loved the smell of hospitals. Disinfectants, sanitary wipes, antiseptic hand washes, rubbing alcohol. Needles and scalpels fascinated him, rubber gloves and white clothes were his favourite attires and blood samples on micro-slides were the sight he endured with admiration. His doctor, Doctor Kang, always had iced latte on his table, unchangeably, and the room smelled pleasantly of sugar, coffee and hydrogen peroxide. He loved the cleanliness, the whiteness and quietness of hospitals, and regretted every single visit that he chose to be a psychiatrist and not a surgeon. 

 

“Are you feeling okay?” Doctor Shin, his therapist, asked again, when he noted that his patient wasn't paying any attention to his fascinating, term-heavy explanations. Hyungwon spaced out again. 

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.” reassured the latter and drew his gaze back at the man opposite. 

“You know that's not what I’d like to hear, Hyungwon.” Doctor Shin sighed and joined the staring contest, once again initiated by his patient by accident. Hyungwon never realised he was staring the other man straight in the eyes. A weird habit of his. 

“Ah?” Hyungwon now seemed to fully turn his attention to Doctor Shin, but the other knew it was just an illusion. 

“Hyungwon.” firmly said his Doctor and gave his patient a warning look. 

“Doctor Shin, I don't know what else to say.” Hyungwon sheepishly said and shrugged. 

“Tell me about your day.”

Walls in this room were light brown with beige flowery patterns that spread along every thirty – Hyungwon assumed - centimetres. Couches on the side were of dark brown leather; Hyungwon’s armchair was brown velvet, Doctor Shin’s - light beige leather, again, and he found this colour too repetitive. Beige were decorative plates that Hyungwon knew were purely for interior beauty because they never used them; beige was the stand lamp in the corner that radiated soft light in the evenings; beige were Doctor Shin's trousers that merged with his armchair. Beige were even the paintings on the brown walls. Those were grey sketches of city folks caught in movement, patterns in black ink, portraits of white women, black men, brown children, yellow grandmothers, sad faces, worn out faces, happy faces, curious, angry, languid, sleepy, peaceful, scared faces. Delicate female bust on a stand, next to it - rough redraws of Genesis based sceneries, radiant Adam and Eve and a shady serpent. Next to it – figure sketches, anatomic sketches, comic sketches, detailed and messy, monotone and colourful. Doctor Shin loved human body, as Hyungwon has learned over the time they've known each other, and he loved human skin and human voices, human mentality and human insanity, too. He loved humans, and for Hyungwon it was the sanest thing ever.

The floor was brown wood, so was the small coffee table in front of the couch by the wall to his left. Small kitchen to Hyungwon’s right held one red shiny kettle, three white ceramic boxes that contained sugar, tea bags and coffee seeds, and a brand new red shiny microwave. There were three polished black shelves with cups, bowls and other household things, and two cupboards over the stove; they were wooden brown with metallic handles. Hyungwon liked tiny white glares on their surface. The only source of light was the massive window behind him that was covered with the thinnest layer of white fabric; light brown curtains were moved to the sides. Hyungwon was always in the shade in front of his bright and fair Doctor Shin, upon whom even the dusking sun casted its tender light. Hyungwon disliked the colours in this room but loved the room itself, its atmosphere and smell. It smelled of candles, coffee and fresh air. Loved the objects randomly put all over the place. Deer horns were hanging right above the dark wooden door that lead to the hallway. Black polished bookracks stood at both sides of it and held hundreds of books. Hyungwon knew that the right shelf was fiction and the left one was everything else; he even bothered splitting each shelf into sections: the top one was science, second one was politics and history, third one was biographies, fourth one was cooking, fifth one was art and photography, the bottom one was philosophy and psychology. He didn't understand the order of those, but knew that books on the lower three shelves were the ones Doctor Shin actually opened the most.

“Anything new at work?” Doctor Shin got used to Hyungwon’s random trips to outer worlds and was fairly sympathetic about it; however, this didn't really help his job. 

“Nothing.” Hyungwon looked down at his hands. Many new things happened. 

“Did you maybe find anything interesting you’d like to tell me about?” Doctor Shin was gentle but insisting. Hyungwon always found it hard to resist. 

“The body just keeps lying on the table, we’ve already done all the analyses, I told you about it last time. There was nothing. No evidence, no fingerprints. No meaning either.”

“Just a head in its owner’s hands.”

“Just a head in its owner’s hands, served on a silver plate.”

“You didn’t tell me if there was anything spiritual about it.”

“Spiritual.” Hyungwon mockingly chuckled and in one instant, his face turned miserable. Absolutely unbearably unhappy. “What is so spiritual about beheading. Is our killer now trying to befit into the image of the Queen of Hearts? Off with their heads!” Hyungwon mimicked and sighed. “Where’s the spirit. To me, this one was more humiliating than the previous three.”

“In what way?”

“In our country, the act of shaving a woman’s head may be considered as an act of humiliation. Kim Sooyeon was naked, with her own shaved head held on a silver plate in her arms. Don’t forget she was also frozen. She was trapped in this gigantic refrigerator for three days, found on the exact day the murderer planned. What does ice do? It preserves you, doesn’t it?” Doctor Shin nodded warily. “So, the murderer wanted to preserve the victim. Fine, we get it – we should preserve beauty; if this was his message, then we cracked it. But why humiliating her? He could wrap her in some monk clothing and shave her head, then it would be a religious act with the same meaning – preservation. But, huh, no, he decided to fully exploit her, shave her head and – how could I forget – laugh in our faces. Do you remember what was carved on her head?”

“If I remember correctly, it was… a face?”

“A face it was. He carved a simplified, comic version of a face on her scalp. Where’s the spirit in that?”

“In the act of preservation.”

“He didn’t really want to preserve her or her beauty. If that was what he wanted to tell us, he would have done in a hundred different ways. But he preserved her humiliated form. What’s the point of that? Where’s the spirit?”

“Maybe our murderer did put a spirit in it, but an evil one? Or maybe he simply grew tired of those meanings and purposes and did what he enjoyed, without giving it much thought?” Doctor Shin suggested. Hyungwon shook his head. 

“But our murdered is much more complicated than that. He is a genius, he can’t just get tired of ‘those meanings and purposes’, he lives off them, for fuck’s sake!”

“Hyungwon.” Doctor Shin gave him another warning look. Hyungwon only lost his temper in situations like this - when talking about one person he hated and despised so much, one person he didn’t even know personally, but wished he did. He would never admit it to himself. 

“Sorry, Doctor. This irritates me.”

“That’s why I’m here. To help you deal with it.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about him anymore, can we change the subject?”

“Of course. As you wish, Hyungwon.”

 

When Hyungwon got back home from his therapy session, he headed straight to his bedroom. He fell asleep in his work clothes but woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. His cats were awake. He forgot to feed them. Hyungwon only had the energy to get changed, wash his face, take his contacts off, fill pet bowls with cat food and crash back onto the bed, nearly unconscious. In front of him was the beheaded body of Kim Sooyeon, her head in his own hands. She was cold, she was exposed. Her body was inviting, warm on the inside, in exactly the same pose she was found. Sick dreams, abnormally sick. Hyungwon forced himself out of his sleep and convulsively tried to separate his imagination from the murderer’s crazy fantasies. 

 

“He’s not only a psychopath, our murderer, but a sexual maniac.” Hyungwon came tumbling into the morgue, putting his rubber gloves on a run and taking his lab coat off a hanger. 

“We confirmed he was a pervert when we got the prostitute, but it’s always nice to confirm things,” his colleague, Yoo Kihyun, replied, head undisturbedly in business. He took a second to spare a glance at the newcomer. “Nice glasses, new?”

“No, I just forgot to put my contacts in.”

“Fell asleep like a baby without taking them off, right?” it was Lee Minhyuk who always saw  
Hyungwon through to the marrow and took pride in this special skill.

Hyungwon sighed. 

“Don’t annoy the youngster, let him concentrate on work, I’m actually curious about the sexual maniac labeling.” Song Gunhee came out of the dark and put his facemask on. Scalpel out, he joined Yoo Kihyun now half hidden in the corpse on the table. 

“Our murderer is a maniac in many ways, yes, he is also a pervert, yes, we stated it with the second victim, but he is a…” Hyungwon started clicking his fingers nervously, trying to come up with the right term. He failed and just blurted the closest thing he could think of, “desperately romantic.”

Lee Minhyuk raised an eyebrow, a loud slap from a rubber glove on his wrist made the other two snicker into their facemasks. Hyungwon gloomed. 

“So, is he a sexual predator or a desperate romantic?”

“He is not a predator, that’s one thing, and second thing, he is both. He has his own sick sexual fantasies that he tries to convey by murdering innocent people and making a spectacle out of it.”

“So… he’s necrophiliac.”

“No!” Hyungwon darkened. Lee Minhyuk was annoying. “He doesn’t want his victims. He doesn’t even touch them sexually, not even a prostitute, there is something deeper about his act and he wants us to understand but…” Hyungwon gestured nervously and bit his lip. He couldn’t explain the unexplainable. “We don’t know what it is yet. The only thing we can do is wait for next victims and read deeper into the message.”

“You are really fucking weird, Chae Hyungwon, did you know that?” Yoo Kihyun said, head finally out. 

Hyungwon scoffed in annoyance. “At least I’m helping.”

“Yes, you are very helping, and I hope Doctor Shin is helping you too,” Lee Minhyuk dragged him to the table to see their new case (granted, unrelated to their murderer), “Now please do something useful, your deep talks are for deep people like Doctor Shin, save some for him. When are you visiting him again, by the way?”

“Today, I’m very stressed.”

“Good, now find yourself something useful to do.”

 

Hyungwon didn’t plan on meeting Doctor Shin. He would say it was all an accident but the more he told himself that, the more he got convinced that it was meant to be, in all its absurdity and crazy fate. 

Hyungwon blamed the morgue for influencing his state. Being surrounded by dead bodies (murdered, at that) adjusts you to fit into the scene, and you slowly but surely become dead as a result. That is how Hyungwon justified his rightfully saddening existence. And apparently in the last month he has been feeling so out of it that even Lee Minhyuk suggested he visited a psychologist or a therapist of some sort – he didn’t delve into those professional distinctions – yet he nonetheless bothered caring for Hyungwon’s anxious ass, who only worried about his lack of caffeine intake for the day. The younger denied, tried to brush it off, but Lee Minhyuk was an intrusive and insisting little shit – an expert in his field, of course, a smart guy, nice to an extent, but it didn’t prevent his name from being saved in Hyungwon’s contacts as Doctor Little Shit. Hyungwon eventually gave up and went with the flow. In the end, he didn’t have anything better to do in the evenings (if he had those) after stressful hours of work full of waiting for new cruel cases with annoying coworkers than strolling around the streets and occasionally visiting the hospital for essential procedures. So he asked for a contact. 

_“Doctor Shin Hoseok. This guy’s a genius, I’m tellin’ ya. Knows his shit really well.”_

_“And why him?”_

_“He worked with us a couple of times. Nothing too great but I was so impressed one time, Yoo Kihyun, you remember?”_

_“What?”_

_“When our Doc Shin guy cracked this guy’s motives just by looking at the victim’s fingernails, that was fuckin’ sick, what a genius.”_

_“This makes…” Hyungwon sighed and rubbed his eyes, “no sense whatsoever but, fine, okay, I’ll do whatever, I’ll get in contact with him, just let me go, I need my coffee.”_

That evening he contacted Doctor Shin and became his patient. A patient of something new that was not a life long blood treatment. 

 

_“Just by the way you space out I can already conclude some things.” Doctor Shin sneakily glanced at Hyungwon and scribbled something in his notebook._

_“I didn’t realise I’d be that closely analysed from the very beginning, Doctor.”_

_“More coffee?” the other man smiled and raised his own mug._

_“It’s fine, Doctor, I don’t want to bother you.” Hyungwon protested but was stopped by his Doctor’s hand._

_“It’s a pleasure to make coffee for you, Hyungwon. Don’t be shy.” Doctor Shin got up and went to the kitchen. Hyungwon noted his doctor’s broad back and strong arms beneath his light blue dress shirt._

 

“Hyungwon?”

“Doctor, when did I start seeing you?”

“Nearly three weeks ago, if I remember correctly.”

“Mm.” Hyungwon was staring down at his hands. He didn’t say anything else.

“Hyungwon, do you want to say something?”

“I feel like I won’t last long, seriously, Doctor.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m going crazy, I’m seriously going crazy.” Doctor Shin remained silent, encouraging Hyungwon to collect his thoughts and carry on. The silence in this room always felt relaxing. “We had our fifth victim admitted.”

“I read about that. It’s horrible.” 

Hyungwon rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Yeah. That one is.”

“Any thoughts?”

“Thousands.”

“I’ll wait.”

Hyungwon took in Doctor Shin’s fancy black polished shoes, he wore them in their first meeting. One of the recipe books was gone from the shelf, resulting in others slanting to the side. “You’ve been cooking?”

“I wanted to make some dinner for you tonight. I figured you’d be stressed.”

“Gently saying.”

“So I wanted to make a meal to hopefully cheer you up.”

“It’s extremely nice of you, Doctor. But I feel like I won’t be able to swallow a bite.”

“I understand that. But don’t worry, I didn’t end up cooking it, I left the ingredients outside for too long being completely engulfed in a book I was reading, so they spoiled.”

Hyungwon quietly chuckled and a small smile remained on his face. Doctor Shin’s eyes lighted up as the last rays of sun descended on his face, glided down his figure and rested on the wooden floor. 

“You look really nice right now, Doctor.” Hyungwon blurted out and started fidgeting with his fingers. 

Doctor Shin gently chuckled and thanked him. “You look really nice too, Hyungwon.”

Hyungwon suddenly collected himself. “In moments like this I understand him the best.”

“Our murderer?”

“If he didn’t try to preserve beauty with our previous victim, he definitely did now.” Hyungwon started chaotically eyeing the room, avoiding looking at the man opposite. “You know, we don’t usually name our victims, but this case just begged for it. The Bloody Bride. How obnoxious. Murdering a bride in her wedding dress and flowers in her hands, cutting her veins open so methodically that the blood sprayed directly at her beautiful crystal white dress. He didn’t touch her face or anything else apart from her forearms. Cuts were so deep they drained her blood completely, colouring her entire dress crimson red. He laid her in a crystal coffin, just like Snow White in the old cartoon, and put the flowers back on her chest. Try to tell me there is no beauty in this. You might think, it’s brutal, it’s horrifying, he has no sympathy, but I don’t think so. He preserved her in her happiest moment. He preserved her beauty. Her face was calm. We found tranquilizers in her blood. He put her to eternal peaceful sleep and, while her heart was still beating, he cut her veins. This is the most sympathetic he has ever been so far. Do you see the spirit in this?”

“It is extremely sympathetic. May I say that it is also very sentimental.”

“You are right, Doctor. He kills with fashion that is not necessarily brutal. He treats his victims like he would treat… someone he cares about. It is as if he is desperately looking for ways to express his affection for that someone, but he knows that he’s just messed up. He isn’t capable of doing anything greater than leaving messages for them. Those murders are love letters, in all their gore and glory, disregarding how immoral that sounds.”

“Do you think that finding that special someone will help finding the murdered?”

“Very likely. But it’s not going to be easy. That person may not even be alive.”

“Post mortem confessions.”

“Post mortem confessions.” Hyungwon repeated and stayed silent.

“Do you think that special someone is dead?”

“Usually, when people want to express their grieve for someone who is dead, they refer to religion or something else mystical, spiritual, since there is yet no physical connection between the alive and the dead. This murderer, however, is very much materialistic. He gives us hints so that we can find that special someone and yet, he doesn’t laugh at our helplessness. Sure, he is unpredictable, uncatchable, but he tries his best to show who he really is. In a very, very subtle way. No, I think that this special someone is very much alive.”

“Does the special someone know?”

“If the special someone really knew, would they try to stop him?”

“You answer me.”

“I don’t know.” Hyungwon sighed focusing his eyes on Doctor Shin’s face. “For now, I don’t know.”

 

“Well, seems like making certain assumption wouldn’t be necessarily superfluous anymore.” Officer Park got up from a squatting position and glanced at the body for the last time before turning around to leave. 

“Too many aliases, we don’t want to end up with the wrong idea again,” intervened Yoo Kihyun, also getting up. Hyungwon winced and liven up. 

“It is the Skin Maniac. It is him and I will not retreat from this conclusion.” Officer Park halted and looked at Hyungwon, suspicion and distrust evident in his eyes. He gestured the younger to come closer and led him away from the crime scene. 

“We can’t jump to conclusions that fast, I said, we can just make certain assumptions—“

“But it is obvious.” Hyungwon was stern and stubborn. They stopped and looked back at the corpse. 

“Only if you can prove it in your genius sick ways, then I’ll consider this a serious possibility.” Officer Park whispered intimidatingly and walked off, to the world outside of the police tape.

 

“So, who we have here,” Lee Minhyuk started off, “Kim Woonguk, forty-seven, night guardian in the National History Museum where we the victim was discovered. The body was found in a coffin made of Cuban mahogany, which is a very expensive type of wood brought directly from the Caribbean. No inside pillows. The coffin seems to be handmade, carefully polished inside and out to hide any indication of where it could be preserved. Clever. Now onto the body. Kim Woonguk was carefully mummified and preserved for seven days before he was discovered. His brain was removed first, through the nose – just like our old Egyptian folks did – then came his other organs. His lungs, stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, bladder and everything else apart from his heart were removed through a cut on the left side of the abdomen. In these four so-called handmade canopic jars, carved of limestone - as if following the tradition, we have the stomach, liver, lungs and intestines. The body was covered in natron for four days. This barely gave any effect but it was enough to get rid of bodily fluids. The body was then covered in warm resin and wrapped in linen. Having unwrapped our slack-baked mummy, we found a mysterious symbol carved on the victim’s chest. And this is not something that happened to pharaohs, so what the fuck does this mean.” Lee Minhyuk stopped the recording, sighed and took the scalpel. “Time to open up our mummy buddy’s heart.”

“It’s not a mummy.” Lee Minhyuk stopped whatever he was about to do to skeptically glance at Hyungwon, as if telling him to shut up and not distract him while he’s about to cut someone – dead, but nonetheless – open. 

“Of course it’s not a mummy, the body didn’t even dry properly, our wannabe embalmer rushed the events too quickly.” Yoo Kihyun appeared from the dark of the morgue, putting on his facemask. “But I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

“He is not a mummy – at least not a proper one – but he is transferring the meaning he is meant to transfer. He was treated in natron for four days, which equates to forty days the mummy is supposed to be treated. We found him after seven days since the body was mummified. The real process overall lasts seventy days before the mummy is buried in the tomb. It all adds up.’ Lee Minhyuk inhaled sharply to tell Hyungwon to finally shut up, but he carried on, “But. Let’s think of the real meaning behind it and the symbol on the chest you already split in half, thank you for that, by the way, Lee Minhyuk.”

“I’m doing my job, unlike you, you nerdy youngster—“

“In Ancient Egypt, people mummified the dead body to preserve it, as it was home to one’s spirit. So, for the spirit to enter the afterlife the body was essential, it kept the spirit alive. You know what else is alive in here? The symbol. It’s an ancient Egyptian design of a cross with a loop instead on the top arm that symbolises life, it’s called ankh. So, has anyone guessed yet what we actually have here in front of us?”

Lee Minhyuk exchanged glances with Yoo Kihyun. 

“Should I cut the heart open?”

“Please.”  
“There is a seam already.”

Hyungwon knew.

Lee Minhyuk cut the stitches carefully, separating each chambers. “Oh fuck, shit.” He swore, straightening faster than usual. 

“Who is in there?” Hyungwon asked. He already knew. 

“An embryo,” Yoo Kihyun breathed out, crinkling his face in disgust and pity. 

“Of a dog. It’s an embryo of a dog.” Hyungwon’s colleagues weren’t even surprised that he guessed it correctly. 

“Is it alive?” asked one of them.

“It’s not going to live long.”

“At least our mummy had a guardian to meet him on the other side.”

Hyungwon hated the morgue for the horrible sense of humour, smell of decomposition and depression, unnatural lighting and the Seoul Maniac’s victims on the table in front of him. 

 

“Last time we came to the conclusion that our murderer is in love. Have you figured anything new?”

“This is not the first time the Seoul Maniac strikes.” Hyungwon looked Doctor Shin directly in the eyes, but lowered his head a second later. 

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s not the first time he goes on a killing spree. He did it before, but with a different alibi.”

“What was it?”

“Have you heard of the Skin Maniac? This was the murderer’s initial name until they changed it to the Perfumer. They thought the word “maniac” didn’t fit such a sophisticated and fashionable killer, so they changed it, but the Skin Maniac stayed in our minds forever. You remember?” Doctor Shin nodded. “He hasn’t struck in four years, everyone forgot the case already, but,” Hyungwon shook his head. He hasn’t touched his coffee yet. “It’s time to remember.”

“You haven’t touched your coffee yet.” Doctor Shin sounded concerned, and Hyungwon felt bad. Doctor always brewed good coffee for him. There was a huge black polished coffee machine in the kitchen bar, and the room always smelled pleasantly of dark roasted Arabica beans his Doctor bought. Doctor Shin himself preferred not to eat anything during the sessions but offered croissants, tarts, biscuits and chocolates to Hyungwon every single time. Every single time Hyungwon refused. It was in moments like this that he wished Doctor Shin offered to make him coffee early in the morning before going to work, brought him pain au chocolat from the French bakery nearby and toasts in bed, asked him how he was feeling and received “good, thank you” as an answer. 

“Hyungwon, don’t disappear. Talk to me, you promised.” Hyungwon hated the world around him and loved the smell of Doctor Shin’s session room. He would rather let those beige roses and vines with sharp thorns on brown walls drag him back to this warm, soft-lit room, than letting his coworkers’ rubber hands drag him to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to rummage through records archive. 

“More and more reporters are circling around the police agency. They want to know. They want to know what we are risking our lives hiding.” Hyungwon bit his lip.

“What are you hiding?”

“A dog embryo.” Hyungwon felt sheepish. 

Doctor Shin frowned. “Can you give some more gruesome details so I’ll sympathise with your apathy for my always brilliant coffee that no one can refuse?” Hyungwon tucked his lips up slightly. He loved Doctor Shin’s way of speech. 

“The mummy we found today. The only organ that is traditionally not removed in the process of mummification is the heart. While it dries out just like the rest of the body, our mummy was still soft since it wasn’t held in for long enough. You know what was the reason to that?”

“An embryo of a dog you found in the heart.”

“Right in the left ventricle. It was a thirty-five days old fetus. Cut out straight from a dog’s womb. It was probably a Doberman.”

“Was it alive?”

“Yeah. It was still alive, but on the verge of death. Just like the Egyptian god Anubis – god of the dead that guided souls into the afterlife, god with head of a dog. He protected the body so the soul wouldn’t get lost on its way to the other side. So who protected whom? Did the body protect the unborn god, or did the dog kept the body safe?”

“It doesn’t matter. In the end, they both protected the spirit. The spirit is alive.”

“Well, probably not anymore since we cut the body in half, but you’re right. They completed their mission.”

“This is truly something spiritual.”

“And very much alive.” Their eyes met again. Hyungwon would tell Doctor Shin every little and big secret about this world, only if he knew, only if he had the chance. 

“What are you hiding?” Doctor Shin’s voice was always calm, soothing, encouraging. There was no pressure in this room, no gravity, and Hyungwon’s thoughts and heart levitated at their own will. 

“I insisted I go through the archives to prove my point – that our murderer is the Skin Maniac from before. Didn’t know they’d actually let me, I mean, who am I, right,” Hyungwon chuckled, insincerely, brokenly. Doctor Shin lowered his head. “Just a medical school graduate with forensic psychiatry degree.”

“You are a psychiatrist, Hyungwon.” Doctor Shin tried to reassure, “and a very good one at that.”

“I don’t do good, neither for myself nor for other people. I do this to please myself, yet not a single time have I gotten pleasure from work.”

“Do you wish you did something else?”

“I wanted to be a doctor… a surgeon, maybe. But I’m not good with living people.” Hyungwon chuckled – how he thought – ironically, “So I decided to do something else similar to that.”

“And you switched your direction to forensics?” Hyungwon nodded, shivering dramatically, “Does it disgust you?”

“Disgust is a little too strong of a word. It doesn’t disgust me, it confuses me, even scares me sometimes. But it’s undeniably an interesting job. In fact, it made me quite empathetic… towards corpses.”

“We should always appreciate the life we are given.”

Hyungwon blinked in agreement and looked at his untouched coffee mug. He extended his hand.  
“I see the victim on the table and I feel like I know what murdered it and why but… I can never quite grasp it.” He folded his hand into a first and put it back on his lap. 

“A new plaster.” Doctor Shin noticed. 

“It’s because I touched too many papers today. My hands are uncontrollable and absolutely stupid. I’m wondering how the hell I haven’t cut my fingers off yet or sliced a corpse all the way to its spine.”

“Tell me about the archives.”

“I found so many things. And so many links.” Hyungwon smirked, excited by his own theories. “Our murderer is so insane and humane at the same time it makes me want to admire him. He is…” He paused.

“How is he?”

Hyungwon would carve the list on the brick wall. Abnormal, crazy, insane, psychotic, psychopathic, intelligent, random, stylistic, immoral, a criminal, a psychopath, a pervert, crazy, crazy, crazy. Ten million times crazy. 

“He knows what he does. He loves it, appreciates it, he takes pride in it. Of course he does. The way he kills… fascinates people. I sure am fascinated. The way he kills makes us want to see more, but we are too scared to admit it. It would be immoral. But that surely doesn’t matter to him. Our murderer is a man of aesthetics and abnormal kinks. You know how I made the link? It’s the skin. He is obsessed with it. It’s obvious; this is how the Skin Maniac got his name. He carved his complicated designs and messages on his victim’s skin and took the samples with him. I don’t know what he does with them but I figured he keeps them. Preserves them – this is the word he loves so much, isn’t it. And today’s case showed just how professionally he does it. Today’s case showed a lot of things, actually. Our murderer is so petty; he wants his name back, doesn’t he. Well, he will get it. The symbol he carved on the victim’s chest, the symbol of life. This was a very, very defining move. But what about the others? How come we couldn’t make the links then? Well, let’s start with the “first one”; let’s start with our cake chef. Cut open on a kitchen table in his own restaurant, tongue stuck out with a caramelized cherry on top of it. His liver, stomach and pancreas were removed, instead replaced with pieces of chocolate-caramel cake he made. One gruesome and wasteful murder. But what about the skin? Where was it removed? No other cuts were found on his body apart from the one in his mouth and the big one on his stomach. Hell, his stomach was wide open as if he was on an operation table with various cutleries keeping it that way. The cut, if I can still call it that, was exceptionally messy for someone who knows the art of surgical scalpel. Was it on purpose? Very likely. If he does a messy cut, it would be impossible for us to sew the stomach back together, so he could take a piece of skin from the softest part of that chef’s body.”

“Incredible, Hyungwon.”

“It’s not even that deep yet. Let’s move on to the next victim, it was a prostitute from Area 588. Mind that it was not the first time our murderer goes after someone in that district. Her limbs were cut off, and she was dressed in white. No signs of penetration, violence or resistance. She was overdosed. Everything else happened post mortem. A kind thing to do, it’s not a move of a violent killer, unlike what happened next, but that’s for later. No scars were found on her remaining body. You know what else wasn’t found? Her limbs. He probably skinned them all or ate them, I don’t even know.”

“You think he is a cannibal?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe he occasionally eats his victims but that’s not his main purpose. His purpose is playing with our minds and satisfying his artistic needs. Which is how he moved onto his third victim. An owner of an antique store found in front of Hwagyesa temple in Gangbuk district with nine antique swords and other steel piercing through his chest. It’s not exactly a popular destination so it didn’t cause much noise and spared dozens of witnesses. However, personally to me, this murder, this man, is one of the keys to our murderer’s heart. This antique seller was holding a testament in his hands. The testament was real. It didn’t say anything important; he had his children’s name in it and instructions to how to handle the shop after his death. But, don’t you think there’s something deeper about it? He killed the man by slowly planting swords into his chest. He died in pain and torture. And after he was done, he put the testament in his hand.” Hyungwon shrugged. “What was the point of that? Seems like a useless murder. Not public enough, not deep enough. Unless,” Hyungwon leaned forward in his seat, keeping the intrigue for Doctor Shin, “unless you link it with his previous murders from ten years ago.”

“That is… a very long time.”

“Bet it was even longer but right now I am way to concentrated on my train of thoughts to think about numbers. It was a very important case that was closed mere days later due to the lack of evidence and public’s lack of empathy for the victims. Two homeless men were murdered in Guryong village. No wonder no one was interested in the case – Seoul slams, homeless dirty people, nothing unusual. Or was it? Two men were strangled with a wire, one of them hit unconscious with something heavy, probably a stone, before being suffocated to death. Just an act of violence, right. Hah! As if.” Hyungwon leaned back in his seat and calmed down. His hands were sweaty and his throat dry, but he carried on. “He carved ‘one day’ on their backs. He carved on their skin, took the samples with him and left them on display.” Hyungwon wilted, having ran out of enthusiasm and left with the cruel reality. “If we go back to the third murderer, we’ll see the link.” Even though I wished we hadn’t, Hyungwon wanted to say but carried on, “Testament in English could be translated as ‘will’. This same word could mean an action one is planning to do in the future, from grammatical point of view. All of the nine swords were pointing at the antique seller and the will in his hands. ‘I’ is the ninth letter in English alphabet. ‘I’ is what the swords were pointing at.”

“One day…”

“I will.”

“One day I will.”

“It’s stupid, honestly. No one leaves messages like that. It should have been something more sophisticated.”

“Then why do you think our murderer did that?”

“For himself? He did it because…” Hyungwon didn’t notice the room grew dark; the only source of light was the soft lamp in the corner. It was just the two of them in the world of this spacious yet so pleasantly inviting brown room that smelled of candles and cold coffee. Hyungwon would stay here forever. He missed his cats. “He was angry. He did it because he was unhappy with himself. Maybe he is lonely. Maybe he feels pathetic and this is the only way he can motivate himself to keep the promise, that one day, he will….” Hyungwon’s ears rang with the sound of his alarm that went of every morning at six, and he made a wry face. Doctor Shin stayed silent. Hyungwon felt disturbed. “He will do something more useful than killing strangers. Personally I hope he meets his death on electric chair somewhere in Arkansas where it’s still legal and just stops existing, ugh.” Hyungwon got up, annoyed at himself. Doctor Shin smiled gently, concern still evident in his eyes. 

“Hyungwon, you did a great job.” Hyungwon huffed, then hesitated, glancing and Doctor Shin sullenly, and pouted. 

“I’m going to go now, Doctor.” Hyungwon bowed and headed to the door. Doctor Shin followed him. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“Hyungwon, come here tomorrow? I know you’re scheduled on the day after tomorrow, but it doesn’t mean we can’t meet outside of our sessions, right?” Doctor Shin rarely talked to Hyungwon when the latter was leaving – otherwise their dialogues would have extended for another couple of hours.  
“In the same place, in the same room? Outside of session time?” Hyungwon spoke softly, too scared to frighten away the atmosphere. Doctor Shin was looking up at him, exchanging silent conversations between their eyes, reflection of the soft lamp in the corner blurred in black irises. 

“I’ll make dinner.”

“What time?” Hyungwon was scared he sounded too hopeful.

“Come at six.” Doctor Shin smirked, playful expression making him look ten years younger. “You’ll help me cut onions.”

Hyungwon warmed inside and left with one final goodbye, promising to come the next day at six. 

 

He is trapped inside a hard wooden casket, unable to move. He can’t breathe, stale air filling him from the inside, hardening, turning into stone. His chest aches. He has to get out or the thing inside him will get out first, and then – the end. No coffee in Doctor Shin’s brown room, no prolonged conversations, no gentle smiles directed at him. His murderer will tear him from the inside and send pieces of him to his family, colleagues and doctors. Will he take Roro, Snowflake and Cinnamon too? Will he have anything left? 

Maybe it is for the best. If he dies, he won’t have to go to the morgue, won’t have to suffer with his doctorate, won’t have to want to cease to exist. If he gives up now, he will never see his Doctor Shin again. If he fights, he will say his final goodbyes. He either breaks the casket with his head or the thing breaks his chest with its beak and claws. He hit the wooden cover. 

Immediate burst of pain rushed to his forehead, and with every hit it spread further and further into his skull, surrounding it, trying to bang its way into his brain. He beats and beats until his bones start to crack, until blood flooded his eyes and his mouth, and he takes one last breath before his chest is ripped open and pieces of wood and dirt fall on his face, his eyes and his mouth.  
And how he is buried underneath the earth’s core. The thing gets out alive.  
Soil fills the hole in his heart; he screams his Doctor Shin’s name and his head falls back on the wood, smashing bones to splinters. 

 

Hyungwon woke up and groaned, holding his head. He scratched his scalp violently, aiming to open it up and rip his brains out. It was the first time in his entire life that he got such an unbearably strong headache. He started searching his bedside table convulsively for any pain relief pills. No result. He fell of the bed, hitting the side of his head, he growled, kicking the empty space, he tried to get up but all he saw was darkness. A cat meowed from the living room. Roro was hungry. Hyungwon felt tears falling on the floor. He had to find any type of painkillers, any. 

Getting up with great difficulty, he stumbled to the nearest shelf. He must have some kind of medicine, he must. He throws an entire box with medicine on to the floor, unable to stand any longer. His head was about to explode. Hell, there were fucking fireworks inside his skull. He had to find something.

He had nothing. 

Of course he had nothing. No aspirin, no ibuprofen, nothing, of course he had nothing. He couldn’t, he was not allowed to. 

He let out hoary screams, dropping his hands desperately. He just waited for his skull to break from too much pressure and relieve him from suffering. Forever, hopefully. 

He lied down, hysteria taking over him. In one second, his breath was caught and it was as if an electric shock passed through him. He lost contact with his body and the last thing he managed to do was turning on his stomach, spit falling on the floor. 

When the seizure stopped, Hyungwon remained still. Lonely tear made its way to his temple and disappeared. Soft paws stepped into his eyesight and he felt better. Hyungwon never closes the door to his bedroom so that his cats can come in any time at night. Headache had dispersed and he managed to get up, grabbing Cinnamon and putting him on the ground in front of the bathroom door. 

Hyungwon looked like shit. It was Friday, which meant a trip to the hospital. It also meant spontaneous dinner with Doctor Shin in the evening. Could he even get out of the house today? He inspected new growing bruises spreading all the way from his shoulder to the forearm and even his wrist. His entire left side was turning blue from the fall. He prayed he wouldn’t get a joint bruising. 

 

“You look a bit rough today, Hyungwon.” Doctor Kang entered his cabinet. Hyungwon got up and bowed. 

“Had a rough night, not going to lie.” He tried to put a smile on his face but felt spasmodic. He sat on the chair next to the doctor’s table. 

“You haven’t been drinking much, have you?”

“No. Just a nightmare.”

Doctor Kang stopped in front of a shelf to turn to look at Hyungwon in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Had a headache. It wasn’t pleasant,” Hyungwon chuckled nervously, fighting the urge to scratch his bruised arm. His other arm was already lying on the table, ready to have its veins intruded. “But I’m okay now.”

“That’s not good.’ Doctor Kang sat back down and put familiar bottles on the table. He got out a needle and started preparing for the procedure, disinfecting Hyungwon’s inner elbow. He loved the smell. “Did you take something to stop it?”

“No. I just tried to survive through it.”

“Did you measure your blood pressure?”

“It was a little high at some point but it’s all normal now.” Hyungwon tried to sound convincing.

“If it happens again, urgently call an ambulance. We can’t get you any more injured.” Hyungwon laughed. There was no limit to how injured he could get, both mentally and physically. 

Doctor Kang finished with the whole procedure and let Hyungwon go, reminding him of his next appointment. 

 

“Good evening, Hyungwon. Come in.” Doctor Shin opened the door and let Hyungwon in. 

“No patients today?”

“I had early sessions, and I’ve been free for about an hour now. You’re just in time to cure my loneliness boredom.” Doctor Shin smiled playfully, patting Hyungwon on the back, and the latter couldn’t stop admiring the way his Doctor’s lips curl and how his eyes crinkled, revealing tiny wrinkles in the corner. He was dressed like every normal day at work, formally, in black suit trousers and crimson shirt, with an only exception of rolled up sleeves. Hallway smelled pleasantly of garlic and something grilled. Hyungwon hoped it was meat. 

“Take off your coat and come to the kitchen, I have to run.” said Doctor Shin and left Hyungwon alone. The smell of food made him nauseous and hungry and the same time, and he felt his headache coming back. Hyungwon swore under his breath. He did not want to associate this place with pain. 

He fought the urge to slam his head against the wall and headed to the room with soft armchairs, paintings and the kitchen. He approached Doctor Shin and leaned on the kitchen bar behind him.

“How are you today?”

“Oh, no, Doctor, not these questions again,” Hyungwon complained dramatically but smiled nonetheless. “We are not having this conversation.”

“Why, therapists are not the only people that ask such questions, it’s a very normal social practice, for you to know.” Doctor Shin pretended to be offended but smiled back at Hyungwon who was fascinated by his Doctor’s manipulations with a cooking pan. 

“What can a forensic not-even-yet-a-specialist know about social norms, Doctor?” Hyungwon played along, receiving a scolding look from the other man. 

“Maybe corpses prefer being cut by polite people. Oh, and please, call me Hoseok.”

Hyungwon stared at Doctor Shin with a mix of awe and misunderstanding, absorbing what he just heard. He stayed in trance until the other clicked his fingers in front of him.

“Hyungwon?” Hoseok was smiling.  
“Okay, Doc.” Hyungwon wheezed, drawing out a giggle from the other. Hyungwon was laughing next when Hoseok made a funny terrified expression as he heard oil going crazy on the stove behind him. 

“Don’t let me kill our rice, Hyungwon, stop being so magnetic all the time.” Hoseok laughed, desperately trying to save their dinner. He accomplished his mission, unlike Hyungwon, who was stuck in trance and disbelief. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe what Hoseok said. He just couldn’t believe that he said it in the first place and that a couple of sentences could make Hyungwon the happiest man alive right now. He felt warmer than beef and potatoes in the oven. They smelled of garlic and spices, Hyungwon smelled of endorphins and serotonin. 

“Can I really call you Hoseok, Hoseok-sshi?”

Hoseok smiled, half turning to look at his guest. “Of course you can. Outside of our sessions, we are friends and never a doctor and a patient.”

“I’m going to be a doctor soon, would it make us doctor and doctor then?”

Hoseok laughed wholeheartedly. “If you want, we can be anything you like.” He mixed in rice and vegetables, light smile still on his face. 

Hyungwon suddenly woke up. “Do you need any help?” he rushed to Hoseok’s side, trying to make himself useful. 

“Hm.” Hoseok stopped mixing and made a deep thinking expression. “What can my gentle and clumsy Hyungwon do to make my burden of being the only capable of cooking one here easier?” Hyungwon pushed laughing Hoseok lightly and pouted. Hoseok bopped his nose. “Cut some green beans for me, please. If you can, of course.”

Hyungwon rolled his eyes, not really offended. He felt like being dramatic. “I’ve been cutting human flesh for years now, I think I can deal with some pods.”

“Then off you go.” Hoseok handed him a knife and went off to find a cutting board and get green beans out of the fridge. “But seriously, Hyungwon, tell me about your day?”

Hyungwon sighed, putting on dramatic act again, “Honestly, Doctor Shin, nothing happened.” Hoseok gave him a warning look. That evening Hyungwon told his psychiatrist a bunch of new things the latter never knew as a friend. 

“You woke up, did you morning procedures. Where did you go afterwards?”

“Did I actually wake up? Am I really awake right now? Have I ever been awake? What if this is all a dream?”

“I don’t know, Hyungwon.” Hoseok didn’t approve of Hyungwon’s exaggerated antics but let the other man be. He put the green beans in front of him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I feel prostrated most of the time, like a normal person would feel in a dream, you know, watching your actions but not actually having control over them. That’s how I feel pretty much every day.”

“Has it always been that way?”

“Probably. I don’t really remember my childhood apart from those torturous streaks of pain that happened occasionally at most random times.”

Hoseok looked worried. “Was it your family?”

“No, not at all.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can talk about something else.”

Hyungwon shrugged, concentrated on his beans. 

“Tell me about your day then.”

“It was normal. I woke up – physically – did my things, had some breakfast, went out and bought some coffee before going to the library to grab some intelligent boring books for my dissertation. Then I had my doctor appointment, then I went to work to hand in some papers about the case, then I came here.”

“Doctor? What for?” Hoseok was surprised. 

“For my blood thing, I had to have another replacement therapy today, it’s Friday, I always do it on Friday.”

“You blood? You have problems?” Hoseok sounded genuinely confused and curious. Hyungwon didn’t catch up straight away that he just never told his therapist about it.

“Hemophilia. I’m quite the case, so replacement therapy isn’t really enough for me. I have to visit my doctor at least once a week for the injection thing, since I’m really bad at doing it myself, and for occasional check-ups, especially in case of muscle bleeding. I’ve been having those quite often recently, probably due to work and poor healthcare.”

“I never knew. Many things make sense now.”

“I thought therapists require their patient’s medical card?”

“Not necessarily. If they are seriously harmed by their health, they usually tell their therapist about it.”

“I’m not that harmed. I’m actually pretty relaxed about it, it’s something I’ve been living with my whole life, so can I really complain?”

“It’s different for different people. Tell me more about your disease.” Hoseok put down his big bowl with rice and vegetables (that he unconsciously overmixed) and left a saucepan with water on the stove to boil. 

“It’s really not that interesting. In short terms, my blood clotting is really bad, so I go to the doctor to get my factor nine injections done. I’m really bad at doing them at home - I harmed myself a few times, and even after being thoroughly taught by my doctor himself, I still can’t do them properly. So I prefer going to the hospital every week and have my doctor do everything for me. Plus, my internal bleeds have been quite bad recently, I told you already. I’m really not in a good physical state right now, not at all.”

“Seems like it is a hard burden to carry.” Hoseok looked warningly at the knife in Hyungwon’s hands. The latter ignored it. 

“It’s alright, I’m used to it. I just want to get my M.D., establish myself as a specialist in my field and maybe move to America, they seem more diverse in the forensic field out there. I’m not dreaming big.”

“Dreaming about your own wellbeing and successful future is good and very much natural, so don’t be ashamed.” Hoseok took the green beans Hyungwon cut into smaller pieces and threw them into boiling water, adding salt, pepper and other spices straight away. “Give me the knife, I’m terrified for you now.”

“Oi.” Hyungwon pretended to be offended. 

“Who even allowed you to use a scalpel when you’re gentler than a princess.” Hoseok couldn’t stop teasing. 

“Doctor Shin, I’m going to leave now.” Hyungwon deadpanned and actually looked at Hoseok upsettingly. 

“I’m kidding, Hyungwon. I don’t want you to leave. You can’t leave this house until you try my roasted beef that I’m going to get out right now.” With that Hoseok took a kitchen towel and bent over to open the oven. If the room smelled of just good food before, it smelled of paradise now, with brown aromatic beef and potatoes brought out into the world of their room. Rosemary and thyme spread along the wall and into Hyungwon’s nose, and he felt his appetite coming back for the first time in a very, very long time. 

“Is the table ready, ‘cuz I’m getting a seat right now and then.”

Hoseok chuckled. “Patience, Hyungwon. Wash your hands first and you can pick the wine of your taste from the bar in the dining room.” Hyungwon didn’t hesitate. 

He rolled up his sleeves, reveling a couple of dark purple bruises on his forearm. 

“How did that happen?” Hoseok rushed to him in concern, leaving beef on the kitchen bar.

“It’s embarrassing. And it’s really not that serious.” Hoseok wasn’t convinced. Hyungwon held back a nervous whimper. “I reached for a book on the highest shelf in the library but overrated my height and nearly slipped forward, smashing my hand on the shelf to hold myself in place. I’ve got quite a bad reaction.” Hyungwon brushed his hair back nervously and smiled sheepishly. 

“You have to be careful. Sounds painful.” Hoseok went back to the beef and took a knife. 

“Not just that. Not only do I have a condition, but my skin constantly flips me off without any common sense. It’s soft and thin, so I naturally get hurt easily. The least manly thing ever, right. I wish I looked stronger.” Hyungwon sounded and looked down. 

“I think your skin looks beautiful.” The words passed by Hyungwon’s ears, the latter being too concentrated on wiping his hands dry. 

“It’s really not that great. Sensitive, gets irritated easily. I get a bunch or random scratches there and there and I have to idea how I even get them. It’s the absolute worst with my fingers.”

“You wear a lot of plasters.”

“I bite the skin around my nails when I’m nervous – you should know that Doctor,” Hoseok shook his head, silently laughing at Hyungwon’s use of ‘doctor’. “I’m trying to get rid of it, but it just turned into some natural instinct. Whenever I get a paper cut, instead of just leaving it to heal, I unconsciously start biting it until the entire tip of my finger hurts. It bleeds occasionally but not that badly. Just how a normal person would bleed from a paper cut.”

“Sounds unpleasant. Something we should work on then, huh?”

“It is. It hurts to use my fingers sometimes, especially when I’m reading or using my phone or my laptop. Sometimes I just want to give up touchscreen and press buttons, but that would hurt no less.”

Hoseok just smiled. Hyungwon noticed his hands were restless. 

 

They sat at the dining room table that was just slightly further down the hallway. Hyungwon loved every millimeter of this house, every brown or soft beige wall with beautiful velvet patterns. He loved Hoseok’s taste – in interior design, in fashion, in food, and even in wine. He couldn’t bear choosing one bottle out of probably about a few dozens that fit in the wine cabinet in the dining room. Hoseok’s cooking was amazing. Hyungwon felt bad for filling up so quickly. 

“Are you finished?”

“I’m so full.” Hyungwon confessed, leaning back and putting a hand on his belly. 

“No, don’t be stupid, you can’t leave like that. There’s still a dessert waiting to be eaten.” Hoseok looked discouraged, Hyungwon felt a bagful of guilt dropping on his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry. I’ll wait for the dessert.” He smiled, hoping Hoseok wasn’t too mad. He wasn’t. 

“Hyungwon, you don’t need to worry. It would be cruel of me to force you to eat.” Hoseok’s fingers twitched but he carried on cutting his food. Hyungwon wanted to reach for him too.

He looked around. There was a painting engraved on the ceiling. “It’s a very nice room. The ceiling is so high I wouldn’t be surprised if angles flew here singing gospels all the way from heaven.”

“I thought you weren’t religious.”

“I’m not. But I was taught a lot of things as a child, my parents being one of the reasons.”

“Are they Christian?”

“They are. But I feel like, the more they look at me growing up and becoming the person I am, the less faith they had.”

“In God or you?”

“Both, I guess. I am the first child. The long-awaited desired son that didn’t quite meet anyone’s expectations.”

“We never talked about you family before.” Hoseok looked deep in thoughts. “How about we leave it for tomorrow’s session? I don’t want you to feel bad about anything during our dinner.”

“When do I not feel bad…” Hyungwon blurted out but soon realized what he said and cringed at his own hopelessness. “I’m sorry.”

“Hyungwon, what did I say a minute ago? Don’t feel bad.” He moved his chair back. “I’ll go bring our dessert.” With that, Hoseok got up, and Hyungwon had to physically stop his hand from bringing a food knife to his throat. 

“I decided to go with something simple and historical.” Hoseok waltzed back in with a plate in his hand. “This is Stollen, German fruit bread, traditionally eaten during the Christmas season. It was first baked in 16th century and only contained flour, water, oil and yeast, as Advent was time of fasting and bakeries were not allowed to use any butter. For you, of course, I added not only butter, but also milk and eggs, and topped with the sweetest sugar powder you can ever find in here. And look,” he cut a thin piece of the bread, “it’s colourful inside,” revealing soft looking bread with fried fruits and raisins of all colour.

“But it’s not even Christmas yet.”

Hoseok shrugged it off, “It’s just two months away. We can start celebrating now.”

“So, we are drinking wine, eating bread – very colourful bread, I must say – and remember nothing as it is not Christmas, Easter or any other Christian celebration, and we are both atheists. Sounds like blasphemy.” Hyungwon raised a brow but grinned in approval. 

“If it’s the colourful bread that puts you off, then I can bring normal one.”

“No, colourful is good. I like colourful.” Hyungwon blurted out way too quickly. 

“Knew it.” Hoseok sneakily smirked and sat back in his place, bread now cut on both of their plates. 

“You seem to know a lot of things about me, Doctor.” Hyungwon raised his glass, tone back at official. Hoseok unprofessionally rolled his eyes. “How about you tell me something about yourself?”

“Let’s do it next time. For now, how about we enjoy our pre-Christmas dinner in this cold October evening and put formalities aside?”

“Sounds good, Hoseok.”

 

“Thank you so much for the dinner.” Hyungwon bowed, grateful for his Doctor’s kindness.

“It was pleasure to have you with me. It’s getting late, how are you going to get home?” Hoseok was concerned. 

“I usually take the bus and then ride on the subway a for the rest of the trip, I live very close to the station.”

“You can stay, if you want. I would gladly have you as my guest.”

Hyungwon was taken aback. He would not survive sleeping in Hoseok’s house, constantly feeling Hoseok’s presence around him, passing by their warm brown room filled with his own sentiments, drinking Hoseok’s water, lying on sheets Hoseok chose, thinking of Hoseok non-stop, non-stop. All this while having his own problems, his sick head, his sick dreams.

“No, I’m sorry, Hoseok, I can’t stay.” Hoseok’s expression changed. “I have three cats waiting for me. They are probably screaming from hunger while I’m out here full and served like a king. I have to rush back home.”

“Then I’ll drive you home.”

“No, you’re not. I’ll get there myself.”

“But it’s late.”

“But I’ll be fine.”

“But you’re tipsy.”

“Doesn’t matter, I can walk straight. You don’t have to worry, Doc—“

“I am ordering you a taxi.” Hoseok wasn’t going to accept a refusal, already reaching for his phone.

“But—“

“I am your doctor and I prescribe you my care and free ride home. Accept it, or you’ll get on my nerves.” Hoseok approached Hyungwon a bit too close than they were allowed and stood on his tiptoes just so he could whisper in the other’s face, “You don’t want to see me angry.”

Hyungwon couldn’t take this seriously and laughed. Hoseok’s gentle perfume still lingered in his nose.

“Okay, Doctor. I trust your treatment.”

“That’s the right way to go.”

 

Hyungwon figured he would be waking up with a headache every morning now. It wasn’t too bad, he could handle. But he hated the thought of getting sicker for no reason whatsoever. He was too scared to refer to Doctor Kang about it so he just endured it just like he endured everything else that surrounded him, including his own living. 

Hyungwon missed Doctor Shin’s house and his soft voice. In that brown room with beautiful flowery patterns on the walls, there was no fear, no pain, and no hate. There he abstracted himself from all his real problems and just spoke his heart out. He wasn’t technically allowed to tell Doctor Shin all the case details but he did so nonetheless. He trusted the other like he couldn’t trust even his own siblings. Hyungwon despised himself for being so easy and he liked Doctor Shin for being so easy to like. 

_“Just by the way you space out I can already conclude some things,”_ was how their bonding started about a month ago, during Hyungwon’s first visit. Doctor Shin brought him another cup of coffee, while Hyungwon was stuck motionless in his own mind, and touched his hands gently, telling him to stop biting his nails. Since then Hyungwon tried to find new ways to fidget with his hands but fell into his old habits as soon as he stepped outside Doctor Shin’s doorstep.

_“I really like your earrings,”_ that was how their casual friendly conversations started. 

_“I used to pierce my ears myself whenever I felt like shit and wanted to distract myself with pain. But now I used up all of my lobes and I don’t like my cartilages so I’m in desperate search for new ways. I would get a tattoo but it’s too expensive and I don’t like showing my skin to strangers.” Hyungwon confessed honestly. He was afraid of seeing pity in Doctor Shin’s eyes but the other man looked impressed._

_“And you never got yourself an infection?”_

_“Well, I am a medical school graduate, so it would be just embarrassing if I couldn’t disinfect a needle and a tiny whole in my body. I cut people for a living.”_

_“It looks good. I like it. But what I’d like to tell you is…” Doctor Shin shifted in his position and put a more serious expression on his face. “You shouldn’t find enjoyment in pain. I can assume you thought of self-harm and I’m glad you never attempted to do anything destructive to your body. But rather than trying to punish yourself or, how you described it, distract yourself with pain, how about you try to find something relaxing to do instead?”_

_“Petting my cats helps a lot.”_

_“That is one good way to cope with anxiety.”_

_“Yeah, but, well, I can’t bring animals to work, can I.”_

_Hoseok frowned, trying to figure out a paradox. “But you don’t pierce your ears at work either, right?”_

_“Oh, no, I used to do that when I was still a student, since then I’ve been in this little dilemma for a while now.”_

_“So how do you cope?”_

_“I…” Hyungwon didn’t know. He didn’t know what he was coping with and why. “I don’t cope. I just live. Ever since I became a forensic-nearly-specialist slash criminal profiler slash an adult in an adult world, I lost myself. I don’t live my own life; I try to figure out the others’. If I can’t get into the deep of my own mind, then I can get into others’. If I can’t treat myself, I can treat the insanity of the craziest man on earth.”_

_“The killer you are dealing with right now?”_

_“The killer we are dealing with right now. And God, do I hate him more than I hate myself.”_

 

Hyungwon didn’t eat breakfast. He felt like throwing up. So when he came to the morgue he saw black spots levitating around him and shook to the side, nearly crashing into Yoo Kihyun.

“Hey, youngster, you alright there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, the light is just too bright, can we turn it down a little?”

“Eh,” Lee Minhyuk stood with a scalpel in his hands and was throwing Hyungwon killing looks. “It’s normal intensity. We have this light every day. Go check your eyesight.”

“I’m just a little bit sick, I guess.” He mumbled, putting on his lab coat. 

“Then why are you here when you’re supposed to visit a doctor?’ Yoo Kihyun was definitely a nicer guy than Lee Minhyuk, but at this very moment he annoyed Hyungwon no less than the latter.

“Because I already visit my doctor every week and he said I was okay.” He received three unimpressed stares and sulked. “I’ll just sit and do the paperwork.”

 

“I believe we stopped on the topic of your family last time?”

“I believe you also promised to talk about yours, Doctor.” Hyungwon tried to suppress a grin. 

“Well, if this is what you want to hear, then I don’t mind.” Doctor Shin sat comfortably in his seat, beige pants looking elegant on his legs. He crossed his fingers on his stomach. “I was born and raised in Gyeonggi province, in Anseong. My father lived there his entire life – he was a son of a butcher and he was raised on the farm, right by the slaughterhouse. My father learned how to hunt and how to choose and cook the best meat, and then he built his own meat empire, and passed this knowledge to me. This is why I cook meat the best out of all the dishes. Our family house was huge; a castle compared to our neighbouring farms. We had cows, sheep, pigs, horses, hens and our dogs that I played a lot with as a kid. My father and I went to Bukhansan National Park nearly every season to observe and appreciate nature and we climbed different mountains every time until we ran out of new places to go. Then we were flying to Jeju every year to enjoy and devastate the wildlife, until my father decided that I was ready to go into the real wild. We flew to Mongolia, New Zealand, Russia, America… And we brought trophies from every place we’ve been to. I stopped enjoying taking lives of other beings when one of them took my mother’s life when I was eleven. She was attacked and tore to pieces by a beast. Then my father taught me other things I enjoy until this day. We travelled around the world and inherited other countries’ cultures and tastes. When I graduated school I moved to Seoul and rarely saw my father since then. He is doing fine up to this day.”

“Sounds like you had both an interesting and emotional childhood.” 

“I did. And I am proud of my heritage. Now,” Hoseok sat back straight and prepared to listen, “tell me about yours.”

“Uh,” Hyungwon resisted the urge to bring his fingers to his mouth and cracked his knuckles. Doctor Shin knows him well enough to read his every emotion and understand his mood, so Hyungwon didn’t even try hiding his nervousness anymore. “I’m not nervous because my childhood was horrible or embarrassing. Instead, I’d say it’s embarrassing how boring and ordinary it was.”

“Nothing about you is boring to me.”

“Well, I’m the oldest child in the family. I have a younger sister and a younger brother. My sister is graduating Kyung Hee University; she is going to be a dentist. My younger brother is taking a gap year and is thinking about overseas universities; he wants to be a lawyer. They both want to be prosperous and I have no doubts that they’ll succeed. My parents too, actually. I can’t say they have no hopes on me, they are pretty proud to have another doctor-in-the-making in their family, but they don’t believe in achieving anything in life with the path I’ve chosen. I don’t think they blame me. They always told me that I could have become anything I wanted if it wasn’t for my disorder. It fucked me up a little bit when I was a kid. You know, I wasn’t diagnosed until I got severely injured when I was five. Apparently I had a lot of joint bleeds as a baby but for some goddamn reason my parents thought it was normal. You know – first child is an experiment, young parents learn on their mistakes with the firstborn so that they wouldn’t do them again with next ones. Because it was not a well-known condition in Korea, we couldn’t find any good doctors in Gwangju where we lived, so we had to drive to Seoul and look for help there. My parents wasted so much money and nerves on me, I think they were really happy when I moved out and told them I’d start working and gaining my own money for my treatment and living. I did. But they are way too focused on the younger ones for now to be wondering what’s going on in my life.”

“Do they know that you are not doing well mentally and that you are visiting a therapist?”

“No. I never told them, they never asked. We silently agreed to part ways at some point and now I rarely visit them for family gatherings and celebrations.”

“How did you live after you were diagnosed with this blood disorder?”

“I couldn’t do sports. All of them, actually. My parents, my doctor and even my teachers thought it would be safer for me and less work for them if I just sat in the class and did something more productive.”

“What did you do?”

“I signed up to this ‘bookworm’ club and left the school early when everyone was doing their sport. I visited introductory medical course for aspiring doctors and went there instead.”

“So you knew you wanted to dedicate your life to medicine – well, partially – since you were young?”

“I wanted to be a policeman. But I was a weak kid with no physical advantages, plus I wouldn’t be able to survive in the police training school so I thought of other ways to enter this fascinating word of crime.”

“And you did.”

“And I did. To be honest, sometimes I still wish I became a surgeon and the feeling of regret fills me up so much I just want to give up and never leave my room again.”

Doctor Shin’s eyes were shiny as if he was about to cry, but his expression remained calm. Maybe a little bit concerned. Maybe a little bit sad. “It’s not too late to change the direction yet. I did. I graduated medical school just like you and was a practicing physician for a short while until I decided that’s not what I wanted to do and changed into clinical psychology.” Doctor Shin shifted in his seat and sighed as if he wanted to share something he couldn’t just simply let go out of his chest. “Sometimes I still regret I didn’t get my full doctor of medicine degree.”

Hyungwon smiled; Doctor Shin is rarely so honest with him about his own life. 

“Seems like we understand each other well, Doctor.”

Doctor Shin smiled in return, eyes nearly blazing. 

 

Hyungwon forgot how he ended up in the morgue. He forgot how he ended up with a scalpel in his hands in front of a new dead body on the table below him. 

“Youngster, are you going to get to the business, we seriously have little to no time.” Lee Minhyuk was examining a book – the Bible – that they tore from their victim’s chest. 

“Yeah.” Hyungwon blinked one more time and seemed to completely return his consciousness. He bit his lips, nervous and terrified. “Yeah, I will get to the business right now.” He said obediently, not quite controlling what was coming out of his mouth. On the table in front of his was a woman in her thirties; her eyes were forced open, upper lids glued up, mouth sewed closed. The Bible was glued to her chest and her arms, and she was strung in a sitting position, as if praying. She was found in the middle of Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral in front of the altar this morning, scarred wings on her back facing the front door. She was strangled. No evidence of resistance. No evidence at all. 

“Hey, is anyone interested in reading the message our psycho left us?” Lee Minhyuk waved a piece of paper in his hands. “This was stuck right here, and it says, uh,” he observed it perplexedly, “I don’t even know. Hyungwon, the clever one, what the fuck is that?”

Hyungwon did not avert his eyes from the body and took the right guess, “A verse in the Bible. You have to find it and read it.”

“Alright, there it is.” Yoo Kihyun was faster in action. “James four colon one dash two. Never opened the Bible before, I’m excited.”

“We are dealing with a murder motivated by religious reason and you’re excited about opening the Holy Book for the first time in your life. Move out, loser.” Song Gunhee shoved Yoo Kihyun to the side and took the book. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

“And what the hell does this mean?” Lee Minhyuk flashed a stare at Hyungwon, who was cutting a string sewing lips together. 

“He is scolding.” Hyungwon stood up and put the scalpel down, looking at his colleagues. “Have you checked the victim? Who is she?”

“Yeah, the report came just now,” said Song Gunhee. “Kim Sungyoon, thirty three, Catholic, dedicated to her faith, made several donations to the church, she is a teacher and she is as innocent as a woman can be.”

“No criminal record whatsoever?” asked Yoo Kihyun, confused. 

“Nope. She was just a nice religious woman who frequented this church and taught theology to young minds.”

“She was a teacher. Religious motive. Humiliation.” Hyungwon mumbled under his breath. “Family?”

“No, she is neither married nor divorced, no children either.”

“Her own family?”

“We don’t have any information yet. According to the witnesses that knew her, she was quite mute, she didn’t speak unless you ask her, and her family lives faraway. One time she accidently confessed that she felt like an outsider her entire life and only found herself after she took Catholicism.” Song Gunhee read the report.

“Unsupportive family. Lonely. Dedicated to her beliefs.” Hyungwon looked at the body again, covering it. “It’s not about the victim. There was nothing inside her body. It’s all on the surface. He is scolding himself, not her, or any religious people.”

“What do you mean he is scolding himself? Why?” Lee Minhyuk scrunched his face in disgust and confusion. 

“He kills for a reason, right? I think—no. I know that he is dealing with a mental illness and demons in his head. He is a fully functioning human being that recognizes what he does. He can’t stand what he does yet he can’t help it. He wants something so badly that his only way to express it is through receiving reaction from the whole world. ‘You desire and do not have, so you murder.’ This is what he feels. And I know what he needs so much.”

“What?” his colleagues asked in unison. 

“Somebody to understand him.”

The other three sighed in disappointment. 

“I thought it would something epic like enslaving the whole world, not this romantic bullshit.” whined Lee Minhyuk. 

“Maybe it is bullshit, but one thing I know for sure – it hasn’t been too long since he started feeling that way. Could one of you take me to the archive, please?” Hyungwon didn’t have the strength to demand like he usually would.

“Is it about your theory that the Skin Maniac and our psycho are the same people?”

“They are the same. And yes. I need to confirm something.”

 

“I’m guessing I shouldn’t ask you how you feel right now considering today’s news.” Doctor Shin sat in his armchair. 

Hyungwon was dizzy – he hasn’t eaten the whole day. Or at least, he doesn’t remember eating. Did he feed his cats? Did he close the front door? He went to sleep and woke up in the morgue in front of the dead body. He does that in his dreams sometimes but never awake. And he was absolutely sure he was not dreaming. 

“Hyungwon?”

“He kills differently.” Hyungwon pretended to admire the walls he has seen a hundred times just so he didn’t have to look Doctor Shin’s in the eyes. “His first murders are different to how they are now. You worked with the police before, am I right, Doctor?” he asked suddenly and turned to look at the other man. 

“I did indeed.”

“It’s weird we’ve never met before.”

“Maybe you weren’t at work that day. Or maybe you haven’t even started working yet. It was some time ago.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Hyungwon looked at his hands, tearing the skin around his nails. 

“So, you were saying something about the murderer. How does he kill?”

“He has a purpose now. He wants to show who he really is to someone special. Before… it was different before. I was in the archive again today. He hasn’t killed in four years. Well, at least publicly. He just disappeared and everyone forgot about him. And then he revealed himself again three months ago and shocked the whole of South Korea again. The whole world too, probably. He… he repeats himself. In the past, he killed at least four prostitutes from the Red Lights District. He already exposed a priest and created a scene with his corpse in the Church. He didn’t leave any messages. He did it for fun. Now—now it’s different. He doesn’t like doing what he is doing but he can’t stop and I want to kill him right, Doctor, I am so ready to murder him.” Hyungwon felt tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He choked back a sob.

“Hyungwon, it’s okay—“

“No. No, it’s not. I must be higher than him, I shouldn’t think about murdering a serial killer. That way the amount of murderers would not decrease.”

“Hyungwon, listen to me.” Doctor Shin was stern. Hyungwon suddenly calmed down, succeeding in swallowing back his hysteria. “Don’t be scared of those thoughts. Don’t laugh, Hyungwon, I am serious right now. For whatever reason, don’t hide away from them. You are cornered in your own head, and it’s okay. For you to understand what I mean better, let me make an analogy. You blood is missing a component that doesn’t allow your blood to act out certain functions in certain circumstances. So you need a replacement therapy to improve your condition and help your blood to fulfill its purpose. You are like that factor. There is something in your head that doesn’t allow you to be what you are supposed to be, do what you are supposed to do.”

“And what do you think that something is?”

“Fear? Fear, which you are too scared to admit to. This fear prevents you from feeling free.”

“Freedom is what I’m missing?”

“Freedom it is. Freedom is what you are. The missing factor will open up your true potential. And I am your replacement therapy that will allow you to find out what it is.”

“And you’re telling me this now because I panicked about wanting to murder a serial killer?” Hyungwon sneered weakly. 

“I’ve always wanted to tell you this, since our very first session. I just thought now is the right time. Plus, I could finally create a good analogy that would fit you.” Hoseok added, smiling gently. 

“You are my therapist and my therapy, right, Doctor?” Hyungwon sounded hopeful. He couldn’t careless anymore.

“If you let me be, then yes, I am.”

“I would let you do so much more than that but you didn’t hear that from me.” Hyungwon slowly averted his gaze and sighed. He perfectly controlled what he was saying. And for some reason, right at this very moment, he did not regret it. 

“Do you want to go help me make more coffee? Yours is cold and I finished mine.” Suggested Doctor Shin and got up. Hyungwon blindly followed him. He didn’t feel himself or his thoughts. He watched Doctor Shin is his soft blue shirt and white pants and admired his broad back; his short black hair on his nape – they were probably just as soft as everything else about him. His strong hands were gentle, his strong coffee caressed his tongue, and even his strong character was so gentle to Hyungwon he couldn’t contain himself anymore. 

“Doctor, I—“

“Doctor Shin turned around and stood in front of Hyungwon, looking up at him with gentle yet sharp eyes, gentle lips curved into a light smile. It felt as if Hyungwon was back to being a teen, in desperate need for his senior and the school’s football captain to notice him, to dedicate him at least one second. He felt short and weak, he felt disgusting because he was never cool – he was a nerd with weird facial expressions, why would someone ever notice him? He walked around the school corridors with a book on criminal psychology and watched a pirate copy of Police Academy in his free time. Hyungwon despised himself for all the past relationships he had in university. He despised this desperate need for care and attention, for something he never felt worthy of. 

“Hyungwon.” Hoseok called softly, nearly whispering. Hyungwon caught his own reflection in Hoseok’s eyes and he looked beautiful. He wished he could lose consciousness at will so that he didn’t have to feel so warm and do things he wanted to do. 

But Hoseok reached out first, kissing him, the gentlest of the touch, the strongest of the feel. Hoseok caressed his cheek, breathed softly, pressed lightly. It was Hoseok, and he was everywhere. Hyungwon forgot who he was, he didn’t know himself, but what he did know at that very moment was that he was nothing without Hoseok, and that was Hoseok was everything to him.


	2. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the second chapter down one to go 
> 
> im sorry if this seems rushed
> 
> i hope its still interesting? its a slightly more sappy but uh i tried
> 
> also?? no graphic bed scene because i didnt want to spoil the whole the idea so its mostly r rated but you can let your imagination do the rest 
> 
> thank you for kudos and comments!

“Good morning, doctor.” Hyungwon entered the room. Doctor Kang was already waiting for him. 

“Morning, Hyungwon.” He looked at his patient with more attention, turning his head to the side and suspiciously narrowing his eyes. “Is it just me or did you manage to gain some weight? Your cheeks look fuller.”

“Ah, this,” Hyungwon unconsciously reached for his face, chuckling slightly, “Maybe, I haven’t checked.”

“Well, it’s good to see you smiling.” Doctor Kang smiled too. “Sit down, let’s get you injected.”

Hyungwon took off his coat and his scarf and sat down, rolling up his sleeve. 

“Oh my,” exclaimed Doctor Kang, eyebrows raised in some sort of excitement, “seems like you found someone.” Hyungwon smiled shyly and pressed the palm of his free hand to his neck.

“Maybe.”

“That explains why you look so good today, then.” Doctor Kang was a very genuine man and very straightforward, and Hyungwon liked hearing a compliment from him. 

But when he got to the morgue, anxiety rushed over him and he felt like throwing up. They hadn’t had a body in a week. And this was the scariest thing in the world. 

“Wow.” Lee Minhyuk said meaningfully and stared at Hyungwon who was putting on his lab coat. “Did you go to an actual club for a one night stand with an actual human being or did you get laid for real?”

“Minhyuk, it’s the same thing.” Sighed Song Gunhee and looked at Hyungwon too. Yoo Kihyun snickered. Now all three of them tried to contain their giggles like a bunch of middle schoolers. Hyungwon fired a death stare into their direction and went off to work on something their boss ordered. 

“How about we go to the bar and you tell us?” called Yoo Kihyun, “Oi, youngster!” he pouted after being ignored twice but then shrugged and pretended to be absolutely uninterested. 

“Is this an Hermes scarf?” Song Gunhee couldn’t help but touching an elegant piece of clothing hanging on a hook. “Where did you get so much money, Hyungwon?” he jumped when the mentioned colleague stomped over at him and snatched the scarf from his hands. 

 

“How are you today, Hyungwon?” Doctor Shin smiled, happy to see the other again. 

Hyungwon flounced between ‘good’ and ‘really fucking horrible’. His headache kept getting worse not only every morning but even during the day at any random time. His hands started to shake in stressful situations, he was getting weak and dizzy – more often and stronger than he usually did from not eating enough. He had one more mild seizure but, luckily for him, he was alone and saved himself a couple of minutes of explanations. He had nightmares every night – apart from last night when he stayed at Doctor Shin’s for the first time. He had the best sleep he ever had in what seemed to be years. He dreamed of nothing and he woke up feeling light. 

Hyungwon never told Doctor Kang about it, and Hyungwon felt really fucking terrified. He hoped Doctor Shin didn’t know either and felt relieved to have him near him right now.

“I…” despite feeling relaxed at Doctor Shin’s and abstract from his worries, he felt ten times more anxious outside of this haven. “I feel more tense and nervous now that the killer hasn’t striked in so long.”

“It hasn’t even been a full week yet, Hyungwon.”

“But he is probably planning something. Something huge. I’m scared that one very soon day I’ll get a call early in the morning with an order from my boss to come to a certain location immediately and discover something so horrifying it would make me lose myself again.”

Doctor Shin lowered his head, figuring out what to say. He had been a little bit all over the place with his words recently at their sessions, and Hyungwon didn’t blame him. Hyungwon had been all over the place his entire life. 

“You know that you can always sleep here so that you don’t have to be scared in the morning. We’ll deal with your fear together.”

Hyungwon didn’t deserve that. But he nodded nonetheless and smiled slightly. 

“Stay?.. tonight?” Doctor Shin was asking as if it was an offer the other would never accept. Hyungwon would never refuse. He started leaving extra food for his cats at home. 

 

“What are you doing?” it was past midnight. They had their bedchamber lights on, illuminating walls covered in crimson embossed leather. 

“Counting flowers in the ornament.”

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I promise you that tomorrow you’ll wake up and it will be alright.” Hoseok lifted his head from Hyungwon’s chest and looked him in the eyes, peeking right at his open heart. “Do you trust me?”

“I do.” Hyungwon trusted recklessly and unconditionally. He reached behind his bedside table to turn off the lights. 

Hoseok smiled, kissed him goodnight and rested his head back on the other’s chest. 

Hyungwon loved this room too. He loved the red that contrasted with the rest of the house; loved engraved wild flowers; loved the smell of scented candles and home fragrance. He figured it was rose, or lavender, or verbena – the soft flowery aroma contrasting so much with the striking red walls. 

Hyungwon loved everything that Hoseok was to him. 

 

But when he was alone in his own bedroom, deep black night and hollow emptiness surrounding him, so insecure in his own flat he considered home, he gave in to hysteria and paranoia. What if this was just Doctor Shin’s method to treat his patients? How many of them had he dragged to bed and fed them breakfast on a silver tray? To how many of them had he smiled so beautifully and lovingly, the type of smile that made Hyungwon forget his worries, his problems, his daily headaches? Hyungwon despised himself for allowing such thoughts get into his mind. He told Doctor Shin his ‘I trust you’s but cried at night at his own stupid dependence and blind reliance on someone so good for him. 

Doctor Shin would tell him that everything was all right but where was he when Hyungwon needed him so much? It was at nights like these that Hyungwon cried himself to sleep, confused, hated, lonely. Scared. No matter how many times he cursed Doctor Shin for anything he had ever done, he would wake up the next day with excitement in his heart at the thought of seeing his Doctor again. He would survive through the night, through the day at work, through all his headaches and panic attacks, just so that at five o’clock sharp he would be sitting in front of the only person in the world that mattered so much to him. Hyungwon missed his brown armchair, dark coffee, science fiction and philosophy Doctor Shin read to him. They always ended up in a debate over their views on whatever the written material they looked at, and Doctor Shin always let him win. They listened to music Doctor Shin put on the record player. He had an entire collection of vinyl records. There was his favorite classic rock – _‘One day father took me to New York to see a rock band playing. The atmosphere made me go crazy and I fell in love’_ ; there was blues and jazz, modern records, very old records. Doctor Shin had collections of everything. 

Hyungwon felt a sting in his head and trembled, waiting for pain to strike with maximum force. He tried to sing something from Nina Simone (that Doctor Shin liked playing) to distract himself, to calm him down, but felt hysteria was slowly catching up to him again. His breath hitched. He pressed his head against the wall and bursted into sobs. 

When the headache died down, he calmed his breath and stared into the nothingness of his room. He felt nothing, he felt numb. He should have just given up. If Doctor Shin were here, Hyungwon would feel much better. He would find the strength to battle through.

He reached for his phone on the bedside table next to which he was slumped on the floor and called the one, whose voice made him feel warm and happy.

“Hyungwon? Why aren’t you sleeping, it’s late.” Doctor Shin sounded as awake as he did. It was disturbingly quite in the background.

“Doctor?..”

“Yes, Hyungwon. It’s me.”

“Hoseok?”

“Yes, Hyungwon?”

“I…” he needed him but he would never ever say this out loud. “I’m not sure why I called.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t sleeping anyways, got so entranced by this book by Samuel Pufendorf. He was a German philosopher and he wrote on duties, natural law and politics. I’m so into classics recently.”

Hyungwon chuckled. His headache dispersed completely, or at least it seemed that way to him. “Read me something from it?”

“I want you to go to sleep. I’ll read you tomorrow, alright?” Hyungwon could feel Hoseok smiling on the other end of the call.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” He didn’t find what else to say. “Good night.”

“Good night, Hyungwon.”

Anxiety rushed over him again. 

 

Anxiety didn’t let him go until he got to the crime scene. The worst thing that could happen happened and Hyungwon felt relaxed. He saw the dead body and his mind was cleared from all its worries. He would never forgive himself for waiting for someone’s humiliated death so desperately just so that he could collect himself again. 

“Jung Hyungwook, forty seven, stockbroker, rich, divorced, no children.” Started Lee Minhyuk when all four gathered in front of the body on the table. Excessively bright light didn’t bother Hyungwon anymore. “This one has a huge record of offence. He was charged multiple times but somehow always got out clean out of the dirt. He raped and abused over ten women, including his divorced wife. He was also charged for stealing money from the government but the accusation was cleared after someone else took it upon them. What a gross man. Moving on. He was found in his office by a security guard. He died from neurogenic shock caused by extreme pain and cervical spine injury. He had his genitals cut off – they are missing, by the way – and if we turn the body around we can see multiple bruises along his spine. His neck was damaged right here, which resulted in victim’s paralysis and eventual suffocation. The skin from his face was cut out while the victim was, uh, half dead, let’s put it that way. His face was fully skinned and glued to the mirror that is lying behind me. These are photos of the crime scene. We can assume the victim was still alive when our murderer glued his own face on the mirror and forced him to look at… uh, himself. Hyungwon, the scene is yours, tell us something clever.”

Hyungwon took the photos. 

“This is so different from his previous murders.” He observed. He tried to look. He searched. Until it clicked in him. “I know what it is.” He put the photos down abruptly and rushed to leave the morgue. 

“Hey, youngster, where are you going? We are in the middle of investigation!” called Yoo Kihyun after him. Hyungwon put his coat on. 

“At least tell us about your smartass guesses.” Lee Minhyuk sounded offended. 

Hyungwon turned right by the door. “This is different from his previous murders because he isn’t telling us about himself bit by bit, this murder is linked with the two of his previous ones, two homeless men from ten years ago and an antique seller from two months ago, he’s making a sentence!” gibbered Hyungwon at the speed of light and left the morgue. 

“What the fuck is wrong with him.” The others just shrugged. 

 

Hyungwon rushed to the front door of Doctor Shin’s house, nearly bumping into someone at the doorstep. 

“I’m so sorry, I need to get in.” he quickly bowed in apology and the exiting woman glanced at him as if he was some kind of psychopath. Hyungwon couldn’t careless. 

“Hyungwon! Why are you here? You are,” Doctor Shin looked at his watch, “two hours early, I’m about to have another patient in ten minutes.”

“Doesn’t matter, I need to tell you something.” Hyungwon took Doctor Shin by the wrist and dragged him into their brown room. 

“I’ll see you on Thursday, missis Kim.” Shouted Doctor Shin and Hyungwon felt a sting on jealousy. He suddenly disliked being in here. “Hyungwon, would you please explain?”

They stopped in the middle of their session room. Hyungwon came here to understand, but not what he said next, lead by fault emotions, “Do you sleep with other patients?” He didn’t mean to say that, yet he wasn’t scared to hear the answer. He knew it already. He was just desperate for at least something sane in this entire world.

Hoseok looked genuinely upset. Hyungwon held his hands back not to slap himself. “Hyungwon, you know that—“

“Just yes or no. Please.” He felt on the verge of tears. He didn’t need to hear anything from Hoseok. He just wanted to feel something else that was not hatred for his own horrible nature. 

“No. Of course not, Hyungwon.” Hoseok’s eyes were the most beautiful things Hyungwon had ever seen and he would never wish to ruin them with tears. “How could you possibly doubt? What I feel towards you and do with you, I have…” Hoseok hands twitched – he wanted to reach out, “never done with anyone else in my entire life.”

Hyungwon took his hands instead, and they both melted into the touch. To Hyungwon, this was the sanest and the most natural thing ever. “I came to understand something.”

“What is it?”

“We’ve got a new body. This is probably out most controversial case so far.”

“Let’s sit down and you’ll tell me everything in the remaining five minutes before my next patient comes in.” 

Hyungwon burned the seed of jealousy that started to grow inside of him. This was not important. “A man, rapist and abuser, hidden behind the mask of a rich and honorable businessman. His mask was finally scarred off and glued on the mirror for our man to see into himself. Too bad he couldn’t really as he was already dead.” Hyungwon glanced at Doctor Shin meaningfully. “Any thoughts?”

“A mask ripped off from his true identity.”

“This. This is it. True identity. But is it really an identity?”

“What else do you think it is?”

“It’s the third murder. Our sentence slowly starts to make sense. One day, I will… find?” Hyungwon shifted in his seat, unsure of his thoughts. “I will find my true identity? Is this what he is trying to say?”

Doctor Shin frowned, thinking. “Personally to me—“

“It doesn’t seem right?” Hyungwon finished. Doctor Shin nodded. 

“Exactly.”

“That is what I think too. He seems too incomplete yet to just randomly reveal his message.”

“Does it mean that?..”

“Yes. We are waiting for at least one other murder.”

“Is this what you wanted to confirm?” Doctor Shin smiled. Gently, as he always did to Hyungwon.

“Yes. Thank you, Doctor.” He got up. “I guess there is another patient coming in? I’ll better leave.”

“Of course.” Doctor Shin walked him to the door. “We’ll finish during our session then.”

Hyungwon smiled and nodded. “Yeah. See you soon then.” They stared each other in the eyes, trying not to break the wall of privacy. They are not alone yet. They have to wait until evening to say everything they meant to tell each other every single day.

‘One day, I will find my true…’  
Hyungwon took his guesses. He felt like he already knew but was just too scared to prove it. He was waiting for the next murder. And he felt so, so abnormally calm about it. 

 

Hoseok kissed his thighs, moving up to his stomach, to his chest, to his neck. He licked every protruding rib, bit his collarbones, left light bruises on his neck. Hyungwon allowed him to. Hyungwon allowed him to mark his entire body wherever the other wanted, but Hoseok treated him with care even in bed. Hoseok allowed Hyungwon to scratch his back, to leave bruises on his hips, to bit his lips until there was blood filling up their mouths. Hyungwon felt lightheaded – he accidently hit the back of his head on the wall from overdosing on ecstasy that was Hoseok’s entire existence, his tongue, his lips, his eyes. Red was clouding his vision, smell of sweat mixed with the flowery fragrance filled his nose, and in his ears was Hoseok’s voice, his breaths, his quite moans. Hyungwon would let Hoseok love all of him, all of his body that he himself was ashamed of, his face that he himself didn’t like seeing in the mirror. He would let Hoseok free his fingers from all the band-aids and intervene them with his own. He let Hoseok do everything and Hoseok let him do everything back in return. 

“I’m so happy.” Hoseok confessed, catching his breath. His head rested on Hyungwon’s stomach that was going up and down in rhythm with his own breath. “You hit your head, are you okay?” he got up and embraced Hyungwon’s face in his hands.

“I’m fine. Much better than if I was without you.” Hoseok smiled at Hyungwon’s sappiness. Then he froze, palming the other’s cheeks. Hyungwon looked at him confused. Hoseok giggled, “I never noticed how soft your cheeks were.”

Hyungwon breathed out a laugh and turned his head to kiss Hoseok’s wrist. “Let’s sleep. Got a lot of work tomorrow.” 

 

Work came the day after tomorrow when another victim was found. 

No matter how hard the police tried to conceal the details of the case and hide the existence of probably one of the most dangerous serial killers out there, this one forced everything on the surface. 

“Everyone, move out. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t panic, let the police forward, I repeat, don’t crown around the crime scene, let the police forward.” Officers tried to push through the crowd that was gathered around the dead figure that was planted on a stick like a piece of meat for barbeque. Well, there was just meat left from what was supposed to be a human. 

 

“How are we supposed to identify the unidentifiable?” Lee Minhyuk was irritated to the bone.

“He skinned everything. Everything, even his fingertips. He drained his blood. He left nothing but a huge piece of meat and bones.” Yoo Kihyun was horrified. 

“And organs.” Added Song Gunhee. “But seriously. How the fuck did he get it up there, in the middle of this huge plaza, without getting caught or seen? Surely he needed some time to set this – whatever this is – up and run in the open space.”

“He is a professional.” Hyungwon got up from the chair in the corner of the room. “If he could more or less easily escape from other locations, then it wasn’t so easy here. Plaza is surrounded by cameras.”

“But don’t you think that he would mask himself first before going into such a secured place, even if it’s in the middle of the night?” Lee Minhyuk was telling the obvious. 

“Of course. But even if the cameras caught him – and the body was put in a blind spot – we could still build a profile on him based on his statistics, knowledge and criminal history.” Hyungwon looked at the body – or whatever was left from it. “He wants to get caught. Or at least be recognized by one certain someone. He will carry one being as risky and reckless until he gets what he wants.”

“To be honest, I feel like he just needs you,” said Lee Minhyuk, not giving it much thought. “You are so clever even I’d become a murderer just to be caught by your smart ass.”

“What kind of a kink is that?” Yoo Kihyun looked disgusted, Lee Minhyuk laughed, winking. Song Gunhee rolled his eyes. 

Hyungwon didn’t move and stared at nothing. 

He wanted to hide in Doctor Shin’s soft brown room and never appear in morgue ever again. 

 

Hyungwon came home early. He was getting sick again. He threw up in the toilet. He didn’t eat anything the entire day and his stomach twisted, pushing bile out. He saw blood, pieces of skin, meat. Was it human? Or was he hallucinating? He kept puking until there was nothing left, he flushed the toilet but the red did not go away. He did it again and again, but the red was stuck to the walls, it was engraved on white ceramics. Hyungwon rushed to the shower, turning water cold to the maximum. He kept seeing red. Blood washed his hair, his body, mixed with his tears. He felt something gnaw at his skin, eroding it. He screamed, trying to wash the acid away but there was nothing, he kept seeing red running down his body until blood fully covered his vision, and he saw nothing but it. He dropped down, hoping that he would drown in this blood bath and end all of his suffering. 

He didn’t say goodbye to Doctor Shin.

Hyungwon recovered his consciousness as he felt the cold sticking needles under his skin, and he shivered uncontrollably. The shower was white. He turned on hot water and got out after feeling a tiny bit warmer. There was no blood on the floor. No blood in the toilet either. 

He hallucinated, and that never meant anything good. 

 

“Hyungwon?” he turned his head to look at Doctor Shin, “You didn’t say anything since you came here.”

“Sorry.” Hyungwon lowered his head. He bit his fingers so much last night that it hurt him to touch anything. “I’m out of conversation topics.”

Doctor Shin didn’t know what else to say either. “It hurts me to watch you whither away like that.”

“I’m just really… emotionally drained. That’s all.”

Hyungwon came to the point where the smell of his most favorite room in the world didn’t save him from anxiety, and watching his most favorite person in the world looking so miserable because of him made him feel nothing more but guilt. He refused to carry on fighting. 

“It’s impossible to catch him, Doctor. I will never catch him.” Hyungwon felt miserable. He was miserable. 

“You will, Hyungwon, you will. I promise you, you will.” Doctor Shin’s voice sounded distant as if not really there. Yet Hyungwon felt it to the bottom of his heart.

“Okay. I will. Yeah, I will,” he tried to convince himself. Doctor Shin rose from his seat and kneeled right in front of him. 

“What will you do when you catch him?”

“I will…” in one instance, Hyungwon’s eyes widened, letting a couple of gathered tears fall on his cheeks, fear and terrifying realization evident on his face. He brought a hand to his mouth and tried to choke back sobs. He started panicking.

“Hyungwon, calm down.” Doctor Shin stroked his knee but then got up and cupped his face, forcing Hyungwon to look him in the eyes, “Hyungwon, nothing you say will ever turn me away from you, you hear me? Nothing.”

Tears kept rolling down his face but Doctor Shin quickly wiped every single one of them away. Hyungwon inhaled deeply and collected himself. He sat straight, relaxed, eyes closed, mouth shut. Doctor Shin moved one step back. 

“I would ask him of his ways.” Hyungwon confessed, swallowing down the newly arising panic. 

“And that is understandable, Hyungwon. You have a professional interest.”

What if I say it’s not fully professional?”

“Then it is you personal. Do you trust yourself?”

“Occasionally.”

“I trust you, Hyungwon.” Doctor Shin kneeled back down and took Hyungwon’s hands in his. 

“Will you protect me from myself?”

“I am your factor, Hyungwon,” he kissed his every knuckle. “It is not only my job to heal you. It is my purpose.”

“Thank you, Hoseok.”

 

“That’s it. That was the final straw. FBI is involved.” Announced officer Park. “The case went on the international level. From now on, all of us will work all of our asses off to catch the Seoul murderer. I don’t care what you have to say. The reputation of the entire country might fall dramatically if we don’t catch that psycho.”

“So, what the fuck?” asked Lee Minhyuk, catching up with his colleagues as they left the conference room. 

“The fuck is that our fucking psycho killed a black tourist from the States and now everyone thinks we, Koreans, are racist,” answered Yoo Kihyun, spitting words like bullets. 

“If he just carried on murdering our citizens, no one outside would ever care. And he wanted to be noticed.” Song Gunhee added. 

“I’m going back to the archives, tell me when FBI finds something useful.” Was the last thing Hyungwon said before disappearing in the corridors. 

 

Hyungwon was replaying the events of all the murders he could remember, randomly, chaotically. He observed the room again for the thousandth time. He always found something new. 

Doctor Shin’s walls were brown with beige flowery patterns. 

A case from nine years ago. Park Sunmyeon, a prostitute, was killed in her place of work; skin on her back was carved to resemble wings. No skin found.

Hoseok always kissed him gently. 

No evidence. No fingerprints, no weapon, the victim died from suffocation. He never left anything. 

“Hyungwon?”

Hoseok always kissed him so gently on his stomach and lower, lower. Right where he is the most sensitive. 

Park Sunmyeon wasn’t tortured. At least, there was no record of it. The police stopped investigated and closed the case unsolved. There was no information about the body’s state, about the scar – did he disfigure her before or after her death? The victim had no family apart from her father who was an alcoholic. He didn’t care about her. Did the murderer know that?

Hoseok learned all of Hyungwon’s most sensitive areas on his body. Sometimes Hyungwon thought that he did it on the day they first met in this room. 

The murderer’s next victim was Kim Hyojoo, a high school student, she ran away from home in Gwangju to Seoul where she was found hanged in the theatre. The hall was temporarily used for some American circus troupe that was having a tour. 

“Hyungwon?”

The police didn’t attribute this murder to the same killer, and the case was closed. Once again, due to the lack of evidence. 

Hyungwon felt so good in Hoseok’s home. 

The murderer wanted to show that what the girl was doing – running away from home, partying with local underground rappers and drinking illegally – was nothing but a circus. 

Hyungwon never knew whether it was Hoseok himself or what he did to Hyungwon, that made him want to stay in this place forever. 

“Hyungwon.”

At least ten more murders in the next years. He always conveyed some kind of meaning, he expressed his thoughts and love for art and human flesh, and they were never related. In the past few months this meaning started to carry some kind of wicked romance in it, it was spiritual, repentant, as if he wanted to change. As if he wanted to be loved back. Why did he change? For what? For who? 

“Hyungwon, you’ve been gone for long enough already, come back.” Doctor Shin’s voice got him out of his trance. 

“Ah?”

“I thought I seriously lost you there for a moment. Please don’t escape from reality so much at such random moments.” Doctor Shin wasn’t scolding, he was asking. Gently, with care. Just like always. 

“Can’t help myself. I don’t control my thoughts.”

“What were the thoughts about?” he didn’t need to ask.

“Our murderer.”

“Of course. Did you think of something new?”

For some reason, Hyungwon didn’t want to tell Doctor Shin anything today. 

He was surrounded by brown walls with beige flowery patterns, there were drawings and paintings hanging on them, there were people on the paintings. People that all conveyed some kind of meaning that was always so important to Doctor Shin. 

 

“Look, this is what FBI found out.” Lee Minhyuk dropped a heavy folder in front of Hyungwon. “You only looked at Seoul, am I right?” Hyungwon nodded, “Well, guess what, seems like we found the origin of our psycho. Fifteen years ago there was a murder in Gyeonggi province, in Anseong, somewhere in farmlands. A girl, sixteen years old, was killed. She was hit with something heavy on the head and then suffocated while unconscious. And you know what’s interesting? There was a patch of skin removed from her cheek. You know what else is interesting? The case was closed. There was no record of the exact location. There were no witnesses. Or was there? Six years later a man is murdered here in Seoul – knife in his heart. His face was scalped, just like with one of our recent victims. You know where this man was from? Gyeonggi province, Anseong. Do you want me to carry on?”

“No.” Hyungwon pressed his hands to his face and tried to breathe. 

“Just one little thing, okay?” Hyungwon nodded. “So, we have a profile. Our murderer lived – or at least was at some point – in Gyeonggi province, he is between thirty-forty years old, so his first known murder was when he was fairly young. He has a good knowledge of medicine, so he is or was a doctor, or at least studied medicine on academic level. He knows his victims’ stories and backgrounds. Does he ask them or analyze them? How close does he get to his victims to know them? And what kind of people can do it? He probably knows psychology, or is just really good at being friendly. What else,” he scanned through the folder, “Here are some pictures of what the security camera captured. He befriended our tourist on the streets, but then he also left him on the streets right by one of the police stations. He is very well masked, his face is hidden and his body proportions might be slightly deformed so that he didn’t look recognizable at all. So, overall, we have a man in his thirties-forties, probably a doctor, around 172-180 centimeters tall, and he is currently in Seoul, probably moved here from Anseong. It’s not a lot of information but I think that’s enough to start a proper investigation and find our first suspects. I already have one.” Lee Minhyuk observed Hyungwon’s reaction. The latter didn’t express anything, “I don’t want to say it or even suspect him, but he kind of fits the profile and he is close to us. You know who I’m talking about.”

“Doctor Shin,” Hyungwon said unemotionally but Lee Minhyuk still caught a glimpse of doom in his voice. 

“I’m not saying it’s him. I’m seriously doubting that, but just for the record – we have to check him.” Lee Minhyuk hesitated, “You mind doing that?”

Hyungwon got up. “I’ll do it.” His eyes were dark, and he looked grey. He will do anything to catch the murderer even if he had to doubt Hoseok for that. 

 

Headache didn’t let go of Hyungwon throughout the entire day. It didn’t let him go even in Hoseok’s pleasant and lovely brown room. 

“Hyungwon, what’s wrong?” Hoseok was so concern it made Hyungwon’s heart ache. 

“Just… just a headache that’s been bothering me for a while, but it’s okay. I can deal.”

“I wish I could help but I know you are not allowed any painkillers, so…” Hoseok furrowed his eyebrows and looked around. “I’m sorry I can’t help.”

Hyungwon smiled, weakly but genuinely. He loved Hoseok’s care. “It’s fine. The thing you can do though is…” he smiled wider and shyer. “Can I stay at your house overnight again?”

Hoseok only got brighter. “Of course. My home is your home.”

 

Hoseok fell asleep nearly immediately after sex. _I am so eternally grateful for you_ , was what he said before closing his eyes. Hyungwon’s headache worsened and he couldn’t calm down. Hysteria would catch up to him if he didn’t get up to find a quiet place somewhere in the depth of the house where Hoseok wouldn’t hear him. Hyungwon made sure Hoseok was deep asleep and slowly got up. He found his boxers and his shirt and left the bedroom. 

The entire house looked gloomy and dead without the lights on, and Hyungwon felt involuntarily scared. He was terrified. He was going to sneak around Hoseok’s house looking for nothing. He knew that was nothing. 

Or did he just try to convince himself that there was nothing?

Hyungwon walked to the furthest corridor, away from their bedroom, away from his beautiful sleeping Hoseok. He’s only been here once when Hoseok was showing him around. Apparently, the door to his left was the laundry room; the door in front was the storage; another room to his left was a guest room, one of the three. To his right was an antique looking chest of drawers, black and polished with golden ornament and golden handles. Hyungwon reached out to open the first drawer. 

Why was he here? What was he doing? Hyungwon wanted to slap himself out of it but instinctively carried on. 

It was medicine, plasters, bandages. Nothing out of ordinary, Hoseok used to be a medical student, so it was perfectly natural for him to have all of that. Everyone has that. Not in such excessive amounts, of course, medicine is a must for every household. Further in the drawer Hyungwon found a bunch of unused syringes. Then tranquilizers. Then all sorts of illegal drugs. Amphetamine, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines, ketamine, cocaine. 

Drugs don’t mean anything. Those can be used in medicine. Illegally, yes, but they can. Hyungwon opened the second drawer. 

There were his childhood pictures. Young Shin Hoseok with his father, with his mother, with a young girl who strongly resembled Hoseok himself. He never told Hyungwon he had a sister. There were a lot of things he never told him. 

There were drawings in the next one. Faces, bodies, sceneries, that all just so resembled the murders. Hyungwon tried to block it out of his mind but instead found himself shaking. 

There were scalpels beneath the papers. Some were chaotically spread; some were kept in special cases. Hoseok has a lot of knives on the kitchen. There were a least two butcher knives that no one used for cooking. Hoseok kept scalpels in such an obvious place? Where did he hide bodies then? In a wardrobe? And skinned them in a bathroom? 

No, of course he didn’t keep his bodies anywhere. He was Doctor Shin Hoseok, he was not a murderer.

There was a drawing of him, of Hyungwon. He wanted to cry because Hoseok saw him as a beautiful man he never saw himself as. Hoseok was gentle, Hoseok was loving, Hoseok was his. There was nothing more to that, right? There was nothing like the drawing he was holding, the drawing of himself on a surgeon table, cut open. With a cartoonish heart carved on his chest. Hoseok would never. 

Hoseok would so, so do it if he had the chance. 

“Hey,” Hyungwon was trembling, his headache increasing with every second. “Can’t sleep?” Hyungwon was horrified but he turned to look at Hoseok, who was standing about five meters away, in boxers and an unbuttoned dress shirt. Hair messy, eyes slightly puffy.

Hyungwon’s breath hitched. He didn’t know what to ask first. 

“How?..” he managed, choking on the first sob. 

“I hoped that… your reaction would be different.” Hoseok leaned on the wall, calm, attention fully focused on Hyungwon.

“The only different reaction you’ll ever see will be me shooting you to death.” Hyungwon pronounced each word clearly but lost his strength immediately after, lips trembling. The drawing fell on the floor. 

“Hyungwon.”

“Don’t put on that nice therapist mask back on! Don’t you dare!” he screamed and felt the pain echoing in his temples. He didn’t move an inch closer to the other. 

“I knew you would react like that, then why am I sad?” Hoseok asked himself and wiped his eyes. A wet smudge appeared on his palm. 

“When was the first time you saw me?” Hyungwon took guesses. But never has he ever took a wrong one.

“About four months ago. I came down to the morgue to give officer Park a report on the case police was working on back then. I saw you and…” Hoseok hesitated, not tearing his gaze away from Hyungwon.

“And? You felt like killing me in your perverted ways?”

“And I felt like you were one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever seen.” Hyungwon looked at Hoseok with so much emotion, pain and nothing at the same time. “You looked so sad yet so interesting I wanted to get to know you. I knew you were sick since the first second I laid my eyes on you.”

“You knew I was sick? That’s it? That’s what attracts you in people then?” Hyungwon wanted to hear every single explanation and he wanted to hear nothing. 

“Not in that way, Hyungwon.” Hoseok saddened.

“Than in what? You think I’m just like you? Is this what you thought I was to you?” Hyungwon screamed and with every sound escaping his lips his skull cracked, acid flooded his head, he screamed in pain now, fingers buried in his hair, tearing it, scratching the skin off. He fell on the floor.

“Hyungwon! Fuck, fuck.” Hoseok rushed over to him, he tried to hold Hyungwon down, tried to calm him, but Hyungwon kept breaking out of his touch. 

“My head, my head!” Hyungwon slammed it on the floor, he wanted to do that repeatedly so that his skull would break and let the pain out, but Hoseok pressed his palm to the back of his head, protecting. 

He would rather have Hyungwon break his knuckles than himself.

Hyungwon’s breath was caught and he trembled harder, his limbs twitched. He convulsed violently, his eyes rolled back. He lost his consciousness. 

 

Hoseok turned him on his stomach and ran for the phone. 

“I need an ambulance, urgently, a man is having a seizure, he is suffering from hemophilia, I suspect a hematoma in his brain,” he named his address and dropped off the call. He dialed Lee Minhyuk. 

“Man, what the fuck, it’s like two a.m., what are you doing—“

“Arrive to the nearest hospital in Pyeongchang, Hyungwon is on the verge of death, I called an ambulance, we’ll be there very soon, please come.”

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Lee Minhyuk was fumbling in bed, trying to get out.

“He has a huge blood knot in his brain that is about to explode, he might die if it’s not drained immediately, you have to arrive.” Hoseok dropped off and hurried up to get dressed.

Hoseok carried Hyungwon downstairs and waited for an ambulance.

When it arrived, he hopped into the car. Hyungwon was unconscious but breathing. Hoseok restrained himself from holding his hand. 

They arrived, they took Hyungwon away, they left Hoseok alone. 

They opened Hyungwon’s skull, they drained the blood from his brain, they sew him up.

They left him on the hospital bed to recover. Lee Minhyuk stayed overnight. They didn’t start investigating Hoseok just yet. 

Hyungwon woke up a day later.

The hospital called both Hoseok and Lee Minhyuk. Hyungwon only let the latter in. 

He grasped his hand, “Call the officers over here. Guard the nurses and me. Don’t let him in.” Lee Minhyuk swallowed a lump in his throat. Hyungwon gestured for the other to come closer. “It’s Shin Hoseok.

It’s him, and I will not retreat from this statement.”


	3. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter yay
> 
> read the endnotes to find out something you might like

Hyungwon spent days trying to convince his doctors that he was alright. It had been a week and he was going crazy. He felt more trapped between these four white walls than within his own mind, and he had to get out as soon as possible, preferably now. He was alright, he really was. His speech was normal, he moved just fine, his vision was clear, his hearing didn’t deceive him. He didn’t feel like he had his skull cut open just mere days ago. 

The police carried on with their investigation. There were no new victims. Doctor Shin was put on a suspect list by Hyungwon’s order, but they did not investigate him yet. Something told him it was because they all waited for Hyungwon to get on his feet and return to work. 

Lee Minhyuk made occasional visits and recapped all the progress they had made meanwhile Hyungwon was absent. He said Hyungwon’s reports were really helpful; FBI considered him a great aid. Hyungwon found his new motivation to move on with his life. The soft brown room suddenly became a place he would never want to come back to. He didn’t let Doctor Shin enter his ward, not even once. 

Hyungwon was good at self-convincing. He didn’t cry at nights because his pulse would rise and this would harm his blood circulation and eventually – his head. He wanted to get better; he had his unfinished missions, he had his cats, he had his possibly bright future. He had to have a positive mindset. And he tried his best to keep it that way. 

Doctor promised to release Hyungwon the next day. He begged Lee Minhyuk not to tell Doctor Shin about it. Immediately, they started making a plan. In two days, Hyungwon would go to Doctor Shin’s. He would investigate him on his own, asking him questions, recording everything. The police would be hiding somewhere nearby, ready to take actions at any moment. Hyungwon knew the other wouldn’t harm him even if he found out – and Hyungwon had no doubt he would. Doctor Shin was clever, cunning and so, so disgusting, Hyungwon couldn’t understand why he still thought of him sitting elegantly in that soft brown room, of his strong yet gentle arms that brew him coffee and held him in place when Hyungwon needed support. He was wicked for wanting to come back to him. 

He didn’t know what he wanted. 

“Hyungwon, can I just ask something?” Lee Minhyuk fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, obviously nervous. He thought that, now that Hyungwon was ready to leave the hospital, he could ask him some stressful questions. “What is your and Doctor Shin’s relationship?”

Hyungwon looked at him like he would look at a toddler that just asked him how babies were made. “It’s not what you think. Yes, I stayed at his house, but it was because outside of our therapy session – we are friends. Well, used to be.”

“So you are absolutely sure he is—“

“Yes, he is the one we are looking for. I saw enough evidence to spit and say it his face how much I hate him.” Hyungwon tensed. 

“He did save your life, though.”

“Yes, and I’m grateful for that. But one good deed does not cancel a hundred of evil ones.”

“And here I was thinking you were morally liberated.”

Hyungwon looked at Lee Minhyuk as if he was some kind of idiot. Which he was. “Come on.”

“Just kidding. Anyways, I’m glad you are coming back. Morgue ceilings felt strangely high without your tall skinny ass.”

“Thanks for noting the appearance of my ass. I’m glad I made you feel some kind of way.” Hyungwon smirked, enjoying the sight of flustered Lee Minhyuk. 

“Don’t make the wrong assumption, genius. We did perfectly fine without you.” Lee Minhyuk staggered towards the door, Hyungwon bursted into laughter. 

“I will make sure to darken the atmosphere again with my skinny smart ass.”

“You are half bold now, no one would look at your ass for a very long time.” Hyungwon’s smile fell. He preferred not to think about the mess on his head. “Okay, I’m going to leave now, see ya tomorrow, get better.” Lee Minhyuk blurted out and rushed through the door. Hyungwon wasn’t mad. He just didn’t like when other people made him miserable.

 

Hyungwon’s hospital room was on the sixth floor, its windows facing the recreational garden and the seaside a few hundred meters away. He would have never looked out if it weren’t for the police call so early in the morning. On the cold morning sand, a dozen feet away from where the waves break out and disappear into the ground, were three wrapped in dirty white fabric figures, laid out in the shape of numbers only Hyungwon could understand the meaning of. 

IX. 

What Hyungwon was missing his entire life and what Doctor Shin thought he could fill in in a span of a couple of months. 

Hyungwon didn’t have to drive all the way down to the coast to see the details. He already knew. He exited the hospital, waiting for Lee Minhyuk to approach him. 

“It’s the nurses. Each of them visited you at least once to give you meds or change the drop counter.” Lee Minhyuk was out of breath, he ran here all the way from the parking lot to take Hyungwon away. He sounded terrified. 

“He knew I was leaving today.” Hyungwon wasn’t delighted with this idea. He didn’t let Doctor Shin visit him, he never saw him in the corridor. But this was Doctor Shin, and he always had his ways to possess the information he needed. “Was he in the hospital yesterday?”

“He was.” Hyungwon stared at Lee Minhyuk, angry glint in his eyes. “What? He visited you every day, yesterday was not an exception!”

“Why wasn’t he put under home arrest, he is officially a fucking suspect and factually a fucking psychopath.” Hyungwon speed walked to the car Lee Minhyuk was driving, and the other had to jog after him. He was too embarrassed to say anything in return.

Lee Minhyuk only spoke once they sat in the car. “They are taking the bodies to the morgue now, you want to drive there to check for yourself or?—“

“No, take me home.” Lee Minhyuk looked confused. “Please. I want to see my cats and take a nice long shower.” Hyungwon softened and even looked slightly apologetic for being rude. “I don’t need to see the victims to know what Doctor Shin wanted to say.” 

“What did he want to say?”

“I’ll tell you some other time, okay?” Hyungwon smiled, trying to defuse the atmosphere. They both were tense and irritated. 

“Sure. Take you time. I don’t want to put pressure on you.”

“Just don’t act around me like I’m some kind of victim. It was my fault I didn’t have my head treated in time.” Hyungwon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, relaxed. Yes, he had to wear something on his head to hide the bald spot and the ugly fat scar, but at least headaches didn’t bother him anymore. 

 

Hyungwon noticed he started to act differently after getting his brain exposed and penetrated by foreign objects. He lost control over his tongue but didn’t really feel bad after blurting out something rude. He heard his doctor warning Lee Minhyuk and the rest of the crew that change in personality was normal after a brain surgery and that eventually everything would come back to normal. Hyungwon wished it didn’t. 

He suddenly felt a huge amount of control over his mind but unleashed his words and he preferred it that way. If him coming back to normal was coming back to anxiety, immense guilt and love for Doctor Shin, then he would rather stay the way he was at the moment. 

He demolished any bright thoughts of Doctor Shin completely and set his mindset to neutral when work was mentioned. He genuinely tried and to him – it worked well.

It only took him one twist of his wrist to open the door to his apartment when he realized. His anxiety didn’t go anywhere. His appetite didn’t shift from non-existent to moving and his sleeping schedule got even more fucked up. If having his skull opened up again would get him rid of his depression that Doctor Shin so kindly diagnosed, he would gladly lay on the surgical table one more time. 

The plan they worked out with his colleagues and fellow policemen was that he would go to Doctor Shin’s house the next day after he got released from the hospital, but their very respected and monstrous suspect decided to twist the events around. Hyungwon wanted to go there now and beat Doctor Shin to death. It didn’t matter to him that the other was ten times stronger and probably more experienced in combats. He wanted to kill this man. He never wanted to see him again. 

Hyungwon had a gun in his safe. He knew how to use it even though he wished he didn’t. He figured Doctor Shin knew about their plan to attack his house tomorrow but would he really do something to prevent it? If Hyungwon came there now, would he find the other sitting comfortably in his beige leather armchair, or would he convulsively try to get rid of any evidence, or would he just… not be there? 

Hyungwon took the gun and called Lee Minhyuk, warning him of his sudden decision. The other freaked out, shouted at him for being stupid and reckless, cursed his ‘motherfucking genius brain’ for overthinking everything, but promised to get a crew ready. If they wouldn’t catch the psychopath Shin Hoseok now, then they would lose all their chances of doing it later. 

 

Hyungwon stood on the opposite side of Doctor Shin’s house. He didn’t quite know what he was waiting for. The house looked like there was no one inside even though it was the middle of the day. The police car was far away; it would take them about five minutes to get here from the moment he pressed the emergency button. The residency was very quiet, Hyungwon barely saw any people around during his visits. Today, it was exceptionally calm. Unlike his heart. Hyungwon had to be careful and only call when the danger was real. 

Hyungwon didn’t know why he was doing all this. Why can’t the police just shoot him? Why does he have to see him one last time, experience everything again, letting his emotions get to him? Or maybe he just wanted it for himself? Hyungwon tighten his grip on the gun and tensed up. Just cross the road and you will face the love and death of your life. 

“I knew you would come.” He didn’t have to take a single step to meet Doctor Shin. He was already there, standing across the road, hands in his pockets, relaxed smile on his face, sadness evident in his eyes. It was an act, of course it was. He couldn’t possibly feel sad after murdering dozens of people, if not a hundred. One hundred and one, including Hyungwon’s sanity. 

“I hate you so much.” He spoke quietly, nearly whispering, but he knew Doctor Shin heard him. 

“That’s not what you said a week ago when we shared my bed together at night.” Hyungwon expected him to smirk, but Doctor Shin’s face remained relaxed, regretful even. Hyungwon wanted to skin him entirely. 

“You think that’s the time to talk about it?” he came here without any preparation. They didn’t fix a small microphone inside his shirt to record their conversation. Hyungwon was both grateful and terrified. 

“You know I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Yeah, right. If you don’t hurt me, I hurt you. What else did you expect?”

“That you will come with me.” Doctor Shin smiled wider, and Hyungwon’s veins boiled. 

“I’m not like—“

“You are so messed up, Hyungwon. _You are insane._ ” Doctor Shin said it in such a way that that Hyungwon wanted to believe. But he knew himself better, he knew that he was normal, there was nothing, nothing wrong with him.

“I did not murder all those people for my own pleasure.”

“But you enjoyed discovering them, learning about them. There is a part of you that loved it so much that the other parts of you got so terrified and tried to block those immoral, obnoxious feelings. Hyungwon, don’t you understand?”

“I don’t want to listen to this bullshit!” he was outraged, he was horrified yet he didn’t know why tears started to gather in his eyes. 

“You love me, Hyungwon.” Doctor Shin moved a few steps to the side to stand right opposite to the other. 

“I don’t. It was a way to forget about everything else that was going on around me, an infatuation, a moment of desire, lust, call it whatever, but,” Hyungwon felt tears running down his cheeks. Did he even believe what he was saying? “it was never love.”

“Then why don’t you shoot me now?” Of course he knew Hyungwon had a gun. He knew everything.

“Because I want to know.”

“About why I kill? What emotions I experience while I do it? How did you come into the picture?”

“Everything.” Hyungwon didn’t want to know and desired to understand. He pressed the emergency call on his phone hidden in the pocket. He just wanted to deal with all that. He had five minutes before it all ended.

“What would you do with the information?”

“Use it against you.”

Doctor Shin smiled, getting something out of his pocket. Hyungwon got the gun the ready. It was a remote, or a mini version of it. Doctor Shin pressed a button, Hyungwon shivered. It could be anything. He could blow them, he could call for a gang to stab him, he could just use it as a distraction. Distraction for what? Hyungwon sniffed, horrified, confused, until he heard something pop behind Doctor Shin, something fall down, then clap, another pop, clash. He saw flames rising up from the inside of the house. “What about now?”

Hyungwon gasped, breathless, shocked. He brought a hand to cover his mouth, tears falling and falling. He was destroying the evidence, he was destroying their memories. He was destroying Hyungwon’s haven. Fire consumed the house in seconds. Hyungwon felt heat blowing in his face.

“No… no, no… no!”

“I set up the system that would splash gasoline around the house. Wood burns well, so does resin, so does skin, metal melts but I feel like the firemen would come here faster than your fellow policemen.”

“You know?..” Hyungwon wasn’t able to form anything clear. Horror clouded his mind.

“You called, right? Of course you did.” Doctor Shin shook his head with a sad smile on his face. “Do you want to know the story?” They heard sirens in the distance and Doctor Shin’s face turned serious in one click of fingers. “Let’s leave the story for another time.” 

He reached the other in seconds. Hyungwon couldn’t even get his gun out when he felt a sudden hit under his ribs. He lost his breath, lost his balance, started falling, Doctor Shin caught him and gently – so gently, just like before – held his head and put Hyungwon on the ground. He kept gasping for air. 

“You will lose your conscious for a bit of time but it won’t affect you head. Hyungwon—“ his vision blurred, he barely distinguished Hoseok opening his mouth but the only thing he heard was a shrilling ring in his ears. He felt it spreading around his skull like an obsessive headache. His lids started to close, Hoseok started to disappear, he mouthed one last thing and then everything slowly turned to black, as his mind got lost. 

 

Hyungwon did regain his consciousness but didn't seem to regain his life back. 

Shin Hoseok fled the country, and not even Interpol could follow his track. It was as if he just vanished from the surface of the earth. The only thing he left Hyungwon was an empty hole in his ear instead of a piercing. 

_“I really like the one there,” Doctor Shin mirrored the location of an earring.”_

_“Oh, that one,” Hyungwon held onto it, “I bought this set in Amsterdam where I travelled together with my ex-lover a few years ago. Its importance is not in memories with that person but in the place where I made them. Amsterdam was truly beautiful. It was one of the only places outside of Korea that I visited. I wish I could come back there again some day.”_

_“Maybe you will.”_

_“Maybe I will.”_

Hyungwon would never tell his colleagues about it. It was highly unlikely that Shin Hoseok moved to Europe as the most wanted criminal in the midst of this whole mess. Hyungwon didn’t know where he was. But he would search the earth just so that he could fix his mistakes and this time - pull the trigger, ending Shin Hoseok completely. 

When he saw the other man’s fallen body in his head, his motionless limbs that used to curl around Hyungwon to keep him warm, a bloody hole in his chest that Hyungwon loved to use as a pillow sometimes, and his dead face – dead but not emotionless. Shin Hoseok would never die and leave nothing that wouldn’t keep Hyungwon at night, trembling in tears and silent screams. Shin Hoseok’s face was full of everything – happiness, regret, accomplishment, despair, gentleness. Did he ever love Hyungwon like he claimed he did? Was he really crazy enough to heal Hyungwon, steal from him, leave him messages, and then wear him out emotionally and beat him unconscious just so that he could escape and abandon him like that? Or was it Hyungwon himself who was just so vulnerable and easy to get?

Shin Hoseok just needed a victim to play with just so that he could get his satisfaction. Shin Hoseok was a romantic, a man of knowledge in art and human brain, he loved to combine those two things and breathe on them, breathe over his victim’s bodies, praising himself for he got out of the dirt clean, unnoticed, and more monstrous with each murder. 

He got tired of it in the end, didn’t he? He needed something... materialistic, he needed someone to share his passion with. He got bored of torturing his victims to death – no, this time, he wanted to torture his victim emotionally, mentally, while both of their hearts were beating. Shin Hoseok wanted to be understood, and he used his best to convince his last victim that he was insane. 

Shin Hoseok played with his mind so well, so skillfully, so adroitly, that Hyungwon convinced himself of his own insanity. 

“Hyungwon, do you seriously think it was me all the way?” Hyungwon saw Doctor Shin sitting in front of him, in his beige leather armchair, and he was smiling, as he always did to Hyungwon, but there was no sunset light falling upon him. Hyungwon’s room was always dark.

“Then who was it, if not you?”

“I didn’t convince you of anything. I just explored you further, showed you the right way, allowed you to function in the way you were supposed you.”

“Yeah, right, because you were my therapist, my therapy, my factor, and without you I would rot somewhere like a useless piece of trash.”

“Well, I wouldn’t express it so… eloquently, but I’m glad that in the end, you got my point.”

“So what am I now, then?”

“Now? You are you. You are crazy enough to go look for me, and when you do find me, you will make the rightest choice you old conscious never allowed you to.”

“And what is this choice?” Doctor Shin smirked ambiguously, raising his eyebrows. They both knew. 

Hyungwon rose from his seat, still in trance, still with Doctor Shin’s voice in his head. He picked up his cat, hoping Snowflake would tell him that his hallucinations are not produced by his own mind, by the devil inside his head. He chuckled at himself, understanding perfectly that those excuses wouldn’t work anymore. 

He would never shoot Shin Hoseok to death until he asked him of his ways; until he fully saw him in action; until he helped him prepare and marinate his victims in the way that fascinated Hyungwon so much since the very beginning. 

He would never shoot Shin Hoseok to death until he cured his therapist’s loneliness that the other treasured for thirteen long years. 

 

One day, I will find my true love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so......... i hope this wasnt too anticlimactic because 
> 
> i want to write another piece but from hoseoks perspective and make it a series
> 
> a small one, just hoseoks side and maybe the continuation of the story that will actually have a great finish. 
> 
> i do think this was alright but my hands itch to write something else (i should be doing uni work but oh well fanfiction is more important lmao)
> 
> thank you so much for kudos and comments! yall really encouraged me to write more (i myself was shookt with the level of motivation i had to finish this)
> 
> hope you enjoyed and let me know if you are actually interested in reading the same sequence of events but from hoseoks pov
> 
> hope to see yall in my hopefully next work!


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